I watched Second of the Snow swing through the trees, rapidly closing in on me. I was frozen, wondering how the hell this was possible. I double checked to see if I still had their soul, and I did. Then I remembered Fifth of the Mist and how their body had persisted after I killed them.

  Then I felt a hand touch my shoulder, and I jumped, only realising that I was shaking and sweating when I came back. After taking a few slow breaths, I turned to see Caleb. I rolled my eyes.

  Then he said, “Are you ok?”

  “We need to leave.”

  “What?”

  I glared at him, seeing out of the corner of my eye that I had gathered a crowd of people, some tense, some annoyed.

  ‘Gah, it’s going to take too long to convince them.’

  I readied my powers to flee, but Jacob interrupted me, “You’re not going to leave them, are you?”

  I paused, Second of the Snow reaching the base of the mountain and climbing, then I said, “Fine.”

  I covered everyone in my Domain, subjugating them, then hiding them in Slip Away while I pulled out Guppy and my Nimbus Raven. Using them to distract Second while I pulled out my real body and flew away, suppressing my presence with Stealth, but it didn’t fool Second.

  They followed me towards the forest. I tried to use my two minions to slow him down, but it was ineffective. So I had Guppy and Huginn (or was it Muggin?), the Nimbus Raven guard me far above the canopy, blocking Seconds' weapons as they threw them, calling them back on strings of blue energy.

  We stayed in the stalemate for a painfully long time as we made it towards the Gate, and I would’ve been satisfied with that stalemate since I was staying alive. But I currently had eight other people's lives in my hands, and I couldn't risk Second getting lucky or coming up with a better plan.

  So I racked my brain to come up with a plan. I contemplated pulling out my other Elites, but the rest of them were all ground-based. So I would have to keep an eye out on them relatively close by since it was the middle of the day and I couldn’t use Lunar Aura without burning through all my MP, and I wasn’t good enough at sharing my senses to rely on that.

  I didn’t have enough weak minions to overwhelm him either, so I was stumped. Then I remembered something Second had said over a month ago during the Third Phase. I felt Jacob cackle in the back of my head as I fleshed out the new plan.

  I had my group lower inch by inch, slowly enough that it wouldn’t be noticeable by Second, and if they did, they would just assume we were getting tired. Then Second threw an axe, sending it spinning towards us. I had Guppy raise his front claws to let the blade lodge into them as the Nimbus raven charged up an attack.

  Then Guppy grabbed the blade in his teeth as Second tried to pull back the axe on a string of blue energy. Second, slowly pulling down Guppy, the axe slowly slipping past the dragon's teeth with an unpleasant screeching.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Then I saw Second ready to fling another weapon, so I had Guppy let go, much to the surprise of Second, who let it hang midair for a second. Allowing the ultra compressed jet of water Huginn had been charging to hit the weapon, severing it in half, a cloud of blue energy puffing out like spores.

  Second grabbed onto the energy with their will, but I grabbed onto it as well, and I was stronger. Severing the thread of will connecting the piece of Seconds' soul they had placed into the weapon, dispersing it into a cloud of raw mana.

  I saw Seconds' face contort in pain and their presence weaken as I climbed back up into the sky. Though that didn’t deter them from attacking, they just changed their weapons to rocks and logs, significantly less dangerous than their highly infused weapons.

  So we made our way to the Gate in relatively good condition, though we did encounter a problem. Second was still following us. After I realised this issue, I tried to lure Second away, but the damn Harambe wannabe was camping the gate, like it knew we wanted to go through there.

  And I couldn’t sneak through since they had surprisingly sharp senses, so that left me with the only choice we had ever had. Fight.

  So I came up with a plan, I would distract Second with my minions, then, when I got it locked down, I would escape through the Gate. Though I didn’t know how I was going to deal with the humans on the other side…

  ‘Eh, I'll leave that for later.’

  After giving my plan the finishing details, I enacted it. Sending out my minions, having them wear down Second, and cycling out the minions from the front into the back and vice versa to prevent them from sharing a fate.

  And when I started to see Second stumbling and make sloppy moves, I went to the second phase of the plan. I opened up a Slip Away gate far above Second, releasing a colossal Ant Eater, delivering a payload of a dozen tons of weight and a torrent of lightning.

  Then Guppy came in, releasing globules of concrete spit, pinning it to the earth. And I took the opportunity, bolting past it as fast as I could, every moment feeling exurshitatingly slow. And I watched as Second struggled against its restraints, only getting fiercer as I got closer to the portal.

  And when I was a few feet away from the Gate, Second broke from their restraints, the concrete ripping away from the earth. Then the ape shot towards me, slowed by the giant blocks of stone stuck to them, though still much faster than me.

  But I still reached out for the gate with my legs with hope, but Second grabbed me by the wings, tearing half of them off, sending me spiralling to the ground. I crawled towards the gate, reaching for a Dimensional Mudskipper inside Slip Away with a strand of Moon Silk, ready to steal its ability to teleport away.

  And it would’ve worked, but another power interrupted the process, the same one as the thing that wasn’t there. And I watched as a fist covered in stone was coming down on me, feeling the cold touch of the stone against my antenna before I was enveloped with power.

  Feeling like I was being teleported, the next thing I was inside the featureless abyss that was the inside of the room that wasn’t there. But there was someone else in there with me, a man wearing an NBC suit without the mask, one with blue eyes and the name Juan Bekert stitched onto their suit.

  Then he said, “Sorry for the surprise, but I hope I chose correctly.”

  Then I was back in The Great Debate, having been placed just outside the Gate, and I didn’t hesitate, scrambling back towards Earth. Being greeted by a sterile white tent, blaring lights above, four people greeting me in hazmat suits, playing a game of cards on a table. Two of them with guns, the other two with patches that portrayed the staff and snake of Asclepius on them to indicate they were doctors.

  The two with guns rapidly stood up, taking their pistols out of their holsters and pointing them at me, one of them saying.

  “What the hell is that?!”