The Noble Shade was measuring its chances of success now that it had been revealed. I wasn’t lying, however. Flowing Silver Emperor was watching, and could press down on this thing’s mind and soul instantly from literally miles away. It wasn’t even a challenge.

I got to my feet to face it, Noble slapping to my hand. The Shade shifted its grip on its scythe, realizing it had no choice but to attack, as escape was likely impossible.

It just started to twitch in movement, ready to fling out a killing force that would totally overwhelm me, when it ran smack into Winkle’s Will, and the power of its many-bladed attack, filling the air in front of it with countless shadow-scythes I could not possibly evade or survive, froze right in place.

I Spellflared its attack on me as Winkle and the assassin engaged in a mental duel.

It was not expecting me to be anything of a threat to it. It hadn’t seen me personally in action or Casting, and I really was just a Novice in their system. Plus, the whole idea of disassembling the key parts of a spell to make it collapse, and then igniting the released Mana to turn it back on its Caster through its own control vectors was really not something it had ever considered.

Getting hit by your own spell could be pretty bad, especially when you were locked in a battle of Wills with Silver Foxes who could easily take on Nobles with their Wills.

Silver Magic bored into the legion of scythes, Divine power found the weak points, and my Caster Level for Dispel Checks was in the +50 area. The Spellflare tore out the central tenets of the spell, and as the scythes collapsed, Arcane fire ignited the magic they were made of and sent it pouring back into the Shade assassin.

It could not hide the moaning howl of surprise and agony as the ignited Magic drove into it, all the power it had spent now turned around and driving into its body and soul with lethal intent.

At the same time, it rocked as Winkle’s sky-blue eyes flared with real power, and all the weight of the world began to gather upon it, prepared to crush it right out of existence. It tried to slide between the weight, gather its focus...

The two Shardrays punched into it perfectly, crackling with oh-so-many anathemic energies to the creature, and it lost all ability to concentrate as pure vivus drilled into its spirit and began to eat it away, shattering any focus it had.

I wasn’t sure how many thousands of tons of force came down on it then, but they were enough to flatten it to less than an inch thick, just a blot of darkness on the ground... and then the compressed vivus lit off on the super-dense collection of Dark energy. First cracks formed in it, shining brightly, and then a fountain of heavy mistfire jetting into the air in a geyser of sparkling, icy mist. It formed a plume of vivus reaching a hundred feet into the air as it consumed the Noble Shade with devastating speed, eating away its mind, body, and soul as it wavered and screamed, but there was no more mercy to be found here than at the hands of its Lord.

Winkle walked over at his full elephantine size, shaking his head and yawning again, but his eyes were dancing with delight and newfound power.

It was his first kill of a Noble, and even if he’d had aid to do it, he’d struck the killing blow! The significance of it was yet another boost to his Will, and another step on the road to becoming a true Noble of his Tribe!

It didn’t really surprise me when he dipped his muzzle down and began to drink in the vivus from his kill.

The knee-high mists swirled and converged on his location. He inhaled it all without stopping, the stuff more magic than substance, and his Will was totally capable of dealing with it all. If it was cold, well, vivus was Healing, and all it did is make him feel all tingly inside.

I glided up to the point of death, leaned down, and picked up the Soul Jewel gleaming there, pristine and untouched.

It was my seventh, the others gained by merging lesser Crystals or prizes from the Beasts.

Without hesitation, I touched it to my forehead, and let my Air Star take the final refinement, giving me a matching set of seven Ruler-Class Stars.

My seven little points of light were blazing in the sparkling Stardust swirl of magic around my Matrix. Said Matrix now boasted opposed poles of burning golden-red and icy white-blue, streams of energy flowing between them through the Arcane heart of my Matrix Core, itself wound about and through its Valences with the lofty power of Divine energy, the Primal power of Natural energy, and the humming harmony of the Heartsong, in addition to the constant Holy Wrath flow streaming into and around it from my Warlock Pact.

I was pretty sure I had the strongest damn set of Seven Stars a Human Mage had ever wielded, and that without it being an Elementally-Aligned set, something Winkle still found amazing.

------

Soon enough, it became a sort of status symbol of their conviction against the invaders for the Beasts to have a claw, two, or even their fangs treated with the Wrathfire against Shadows. Since the stuff did absolutely nothing to things not of Darkness or Tainted, it was basically a showy piece of Magic that attracted attention, but it really ripped into Shades they came to blows with... and it gave them a constant source of vivus they didn’t have to haul around.

I burned a lot of gemstones passing the spells out to enthusiastic Great Beasts, and heard they really helped in the fighting, too.

The expansion of the Breach had basically stopped on all fronts by now, and in Flowing Silver Emperor’s territory had actually begun to reverse, since He had the most access to vivus and used it without any inhibitions. That was even despite some suddenly and savagely renewed fighting by the invaders... which, in the end, only served to push the Breach’s influence back even further.

Tainted and Corrupted Beasts could also be tested easily with exposure to vivus, and then either contained or killed as was needed. The number of wounded I treated rocketed as I began fixing up Warrior-ranked creatures and purifying them, sending them quickly back into the fight, often with burning jaws or claws that made them much more dangerous against the Shades.

Outsize impacts on otherworldly creatures for the win, I always say!

It also kept a steady flow of Karma coming through, and paid for all the Levels I was taking, complete with Masteries, allowing me to grab the early Levels for still-reduced Karma.

The assassination attempts didn’t halt, but they stopped sending Noble-ranked creatures and went with inventiveness. Soul-controlled Beasts, Swarms of infiltrating Poisonous insects hidden inside corpses or wounded Beasts, overwhelming massed attacks meant to tempt me out where I could be sniped from afar, massive AoE’s, waves of disease, explosive traps...

---

Speaking of assassination attempts...

“Seriously?”

I was in a dream. I knew I was in a dream. The fact I was in a dream was surprising enough, as I didn’t need to truly dream at all, as I just Meditated and let the swirl of Magic soothe my thoughts as REM sleep could also do.

I was also aware that the black-boned thing dripping squirming goo, with great claws and oversized jaws and worms for semblances of organs and hypnotic eyes with scuttling feet and unnatural sounds was meant to hit ALL the fear buttons.

And it was, it just wasn’t affecting me at all. Now, dodging those claws and teeth was a thing, however, because those were actual mental and spiritual attacks, and could really hurt.

This Dreamkiller had also only managed to snare one of my two thoughtstreams, and my other one was looking on from outside in grave irritation at this sucker. Dunno if it had simply never gone after someone as intelligent as I was, or simply hadn’t even considered the possibility of such a thing.

But really, it was okay, because it had chosen to compete with me in the one arena where I was more than its equal, and that was Will.

My Will Save at this point was something like a +31, pitted against what was effectively a combined negative energy/enchantment Dream invasion, and that was completely ignoring the Sun Save Moment of Perfect Clarity going off with Arcane Focus at something like 50. It was an incredibly high Will Save for an Archmage, let alone a Novice, and this Dreamkiller thinking it had found a weakness of mine had instead basically delivered itself to my doorstep the one way I could compete directly with these creatures in!

I blasted it with Radiant Shards of pure Will, and its susurrant gibbering and slithering became frantic writhing and howling of pure hate, fear, and dread at the very sudden pain and agony inflicted upon it.

Despite being several times my size in this dream, I took the fight right to it, manifesting Noble and going right after the sunuvabitch. Real Holy power joined the fun as I took it to this invader in my head, reaching in and pummeling its consciousness, while my second thoughtstream locked it down and made sure it could not go anywhere.

Holy Psychic power went up against Shadowy Curse power in a dream, and I pounded on the bastard, whose Will was at +22 or something, easily sufficient to take on most Archmages, or at the very least run away.

It wasn’t even supposed to be able to feel fear, but it was definitely getting the whole confusion thing down real good as I closed in on it, Silver Magic flaring with hot vibes, and even vivus manifesting with a dreadful serenity it simply could not ignore. It flailed at me and tried to envelop me in phobias, horror, terror, dread, revulsion, and disgust, and I freaking beat on the thing and Burned it again and again and again as it tried to come in at me, ignoring the gibbering magnifying in the back of my head as I did so.

Winkle soon noticed the black goo burning vivic that was dripping down out of my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and quickly came into my head to see if I needed help.

He watched me rage over the Dreamkiller and burn the screaming, ugly fucker down, down, down inside my head, its spirit dying as I tore its mind apart and seared it with some Heavenly appreciation for its tactics. If it filled my head with the dying screams of the thousands of beings living and dead it had murdered inside their dreams, welp, it got to experience the same thing, although I didn’t draw the process out like it loved to do.

Dauntless made me immune to the effects of fear, which technically made me not sane by Human standards, and by Beast standards, too. Winkle looked at me there inside my head, breaking and burning the thing down with my psychic Staff, and decided it was much more fun watching it break its skull on my fists and feet and Staff instead of rescuing me.

---

“Thanks heaps, Elder,” I groused, vomiting up a load of Shadow energy, which promptly splattered on the vivus around me and ignited with a whoosh.

“You did so well, why would I need to intervene in such an unfair fight?” he replied carefreely. “Your Will is impossibly strong for a being as young as you are, like the whole World is fighting on your side.”

I wasn’t mad at him, I was mad at having to cough up black phlegm and puke up black vomit from the Dark Magic, which I proceeded to do directly. My Lotusheart Moth Silk outfit got all stained and icky, but vivus was taking care of the mess, although the white splotches were going to mess up the beautiful color pattern.

Good thing I’d taken all of the silk the grateful Moth had been willing to give me. The stuff was gorgeous, and so smooth and cool...

“Well, I think we can say it’s all working,” I coughed to him around my violent ejection of unwanted Dark energies, really a secondary effect that could Taint and Corrupt even if the Dreamkiller failed. Not happening here, as I wasn’t giving it anything to hold onto and infiltrate, inside or out.

Blarghch!...

“Yes, you have been attracting an inordinate amount of the enemy’s attention and efforts. The death of the Dreamkiller will no doubt be of great relief to many of the Great Beasts who have been tormented by it.” Or slain. Not as big a problem for the Psychic Silver Foxes, but I had no doubt they were being used against many of the less-Willful Great Beasts to lethal effect. Mindhunting Psychic Beasts had been returning the favor with interest, a task the Silver Foxes excelled at and relished. If they didn’t have the raw muscle that some of the other Emperors possessed or commanded, their servants were plenty able to rip and tear at incapacitated enemies with great skill and energy, as many a Shade had found out over the years.

A Fox and a Tiger going hunting was a horrendously dangerous combination. One to stun-lock a target and the other to rapidly rip it apart before it could recover was a team that killed a LOT of Shades...

That said, Beasts didn’t plan tactics or strategy like Humans did, treating everything more at the level of local plans and tactics, which meant the Nobles just told the Commanders what they wanted to do, and it was up to the lesser Beasts to see how they implemented it. Grand strategies and cooperation just weren’t things they had focused on... until I started making some recommendations that crossed territorial lines.