Now.

  It had been a lot of work, to properly prepare the local terrain for his new creations. A lot of work, but then so much of Silenos’ accomplishments were these days. If nothing else he had proven his power was removed from the crutch of Shaiagraznian influence.

  Certainly, that of his latest grotesqueries was.

  They were thin things, relatively speaking, bodies made eel-like and slender to better burrow at higher speeds. Armoured, as all of his creations were, but more lightly. They relied upon ambush and the protection of their soily home to avoid enemy violence. And to that effect, they were quite a success.

  It had been the eternal weakness of Silenos’ other forms that they were simply too large and exposed a target upon the battlefield. Once, his fellow Named had compensated for that, but those exotic magics were lost to him now. Only the Kaltan-made assassin-forms had been exempt from that shortcoming, which was where he had derived the idea for this latest innovation.

  In particular, Silenos wondered about their utility back in his own world. The idea of using ultrasonic vibrations to induce fluidity in granules of dirt of sand was hardly his own invention, but as far as he knew no other in House Shaiagrazni had made it practical before him. Such an invention may well leave House Shaiagrazni beyond even the advanced, modern weaponry they faced back home.

  Well, that was a matter for the future. It was the present he attended to now.

  Silenos dropped down, letting his wings fall away and reforming them into reinforcements for the anatomy of his combat form. This one was very much alike the others, save for a few, smaller differences.

  “The Dark Lord, I take it.” He called out, dropping down before the caster and feeling the ground shiver at his four thousand kilogram mass. “I have been waiting to meet you for quite some time.”

  He studied the man, and found himself surprised. The Dark Lord was powerful- almost the equal of Silenos in terms of raw magical capacity. It was no wonder he had crushed King Galukar with such ease, he’d have distinguished himself even in House Shaiagrazni.

  “Fascinating.” He remarked. “You really have no excuse at all for such pitiably amateurish Necromancy.”

  The Dark Lord moved without saying a word, which almost made Silenos regret bothering to add vocal chords to his latest war form. His enemy held a mace, a great, thick one which likely weighed more than most men, and yet flew like a feather in his preternatural grip. Silenos had prepared for such a weapon- making sure to get a comprehensive report of how the man fought from Galukar long ago.

  He raised his arm, keratinous weapon meeting the dark metal and letting out a sound like cannons firing. Within a dozen paces of them undead were knocked down by the impact.

  Silenos’ combat form was stronger than Galukar, but not by much, Mere Fleshcrafting could never have withstood the Dark Lord’s strength. So it was fortunate, then, that his experiments in cultivating Vigour-infused tissue had been such a success.

  His strength held, and for one moment they simply remained locked in a contest of physical prowess. Such things were unbecoming for a Named of House Shaiagrazni, however, and Silenos put an end to it promptly. He raised his other arm, transfigured into his flamethrower configuration, and filled the air with white-hot death.

  The Dark Lord moved before it landed, dodging admirably fast. Forced to keep the muzzle velocity modest to avoid his burning liquid being dispersed uncontrollably and made ineffective, Silenos realised quickly that the weapon was a poor choice for so swift an enemy. Even at point-blank range he could avoid it.

  Silenos found his enemy’s counter coming before his own follow-up, a swing of the mace which came with a twisting motion that gathered trailing shadestuff behind it. Fascinating. He did not know of many materials able to withstand the abyss’ touch enough for such an attack, and was not left long to ponder it before the magic thudded into his guard.

  Silenos slid back, body shunted in spite of its mass. He heard popping as the substance of his keratin lance yielded to the Necromantic assault, though a glance showed that the weapon was still intact. Somewhat.

  It was time, he thought, to begin the secondary level of their battle- the psychological. There was a single critical weakness inherent to all casters that Silenos had discovered, and that was the ego. His kind were prone to thinking themselves infallible, invincible. Their arrogance reached the point of delusion. It was almost as if they actually believed themselves to be his equal, that the innate superiority enjoyed by House Shaiagrazni’s foremost prodigy was somehow to be shared.

  A ridiculous misconception, but a useful one. He put it to work shortly.

  “It was all a plan, you know.” Silenos noted, thrusting forwards with his own lance, and jerking the motion short. He’d spent some time studying the clumsy, barbaric science of melee combat, and learned well. It was beyond him to internalize the thousand miniscule skills and habits that made a true expert in the area, but he did not need to. Simply seeing the way Galukar and others fought had been enough to give him some inspiration.

  Muscular tweaks, alterations to the mobility of his joints and a dozen other differences all added up to make his body fundamentally move differently and, more importantly, counter-intuitively to the eyes of a more experienced fighter. It was no substitute for that same experience of course, but it was something of an equalizer.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Where the Dark Lord had expected to turn Silenos’ hand and make his stab go wide, it instead twisted in and bit down on his armour’s pauldron. Steel would have been mangled beyond recognition- even were it made thicker than his entire torso. Whatever that black metal was, it was clearly made with magic. Silenos began to hypothesise.

  The blows came back to answer his, faster by no small margain. He blocked what he could, and soaked the others with his greater size and physical prowess. There were advantages to sheer mass after all, though the Dark Lord seemed eager to test them. His every mace swing left another crack across the mastercrafted keratin, sending shivers to visibly excite the air in shockwaves racing dozens of metres around them. No undead came to help- none were able to even approach save the strongest of them.

  Impossibly resilient metal forming his armour and mace- plus an unyielding potence of body to compound them. Silenos was rather certain this enemy made use of magic over kinesis; pressure, momentum, motion. Such powers could imbue a substance with temporary power which held for as long as its wielder remained focused, and far exceeded the possible bounds of ordinary materials. Even ones made with other magics.

  But it was not permanent, not like Vigour, and if Silenos was able to wound the Dark Lord- or distract him even- then there was every chance he’d find a brief opening.

  However well-made the mundane materials of his body were, they would not withstand him. Not with Vigour empowering his Fleshcrafting.

  And so he spoke.

  “Ado Mortascia is clever, but of course she never had any true chance of drawing Wudra onto my side of the conflict. I was simply banking on your fearing that she might to lure your forces to her. It was rather pleasing to hear how many you’d committed. I was resigned to lose Baird, too, in his feigned failure to delay you, but you actually failed to even kill him in the process of falling for my bluff which only left my position the stronger. All of your victories over the past weeks have been illusory, set up and knocked down to draw you into this battle, in this field, at this day. I’ve prepared the terrain quite well- even left my defences imperfect and incomplete to ensure you’d take the risk of attacking.”

  It did not matter how true Silenos’ words were, they merely needed to sound immediately, potentially plausible enough that the Dark Lord would consider them. Time spent doing that was time with his attentions divided. Silenos had found himself suffering in cases where he found his plans subverted by another, and what unbalanced him would surely work to unbalance this simpleton just as well.

  No sign of distraction came, so Silenos pressed his enemy on the physical level. As they fought, he reformed his flamethrower into a more conventional cannon, raising the half-finished weapon to ward off a blow which threatened to bypass his guard and feeling a stab of satisfaction as his enemy fell for the bluff. Obviously the Dark Lord had gathered information on Silenos’ weaponry, he would have been disappointed if he hadn’t.

  But however knowledgeable, however fast, there was only so much one could do to avoid a shot of near-hypersonic matter at point-blank range. The cannon was finished a moment later and spat out its attack like smouldering rock from a volcano.

  A small explosion rang out where the slug crunched into the Dark Lord’s breastplate, keratin and bone splintering to pieces on impact with his- apparently still harder- armour. Silenos’ eyes were inured against such pressure and light, and the Dark Lord clearly had a considerable portion of even his current strength.

  But he did not have his mass. Even as the energy of the projectile failed to do more than damage his armour, its momentum proved enough to unbalance him. The Necromancer’s feet left the ground and he hurtled backwards like an arrow fired from a bow. Silenos saw him fall back, skull hitting the ground, body rolling. He came up in a crouch just as Silenos came down upon him to press his advantage.

  The lance struck a mace, sounding out again and scraping the top layer of soil from the ground around them. Silenos took a step forwards, forcing his enemy to retreat and capitalizing on his momentum as he swung and thrust more. He punctuated his attacks with periodic shots from his cannon, exploiting the enemy’s newfound caution, driving him around.

  For his part, the Dark Lord was hard to trap. Every boulder Silenos almost pinned him behind he turned and smashed aside with a quick, casual swing. Every trap he avoided be it through agility or simple force. Clearly he was used to battling more physically powerful foes.

  Well, there was no matter. Because Silenos was not as unused to using that power as he had been.

  He was a surging tsunami, driving the Dark Lord like a minecart, chasing him and watching every place he tried to run. There were only so many times on man could evade a trap, only so much spacial awareness and skill could compensate for. At the end of the day Silenos had the mass, the strength, the resilience. And he had a weapon capable of injuring even himself to boot.

  His cannon fired, this time filled with compressed nitrous which deliberately missed the Dark lord by centimetres. The explosion at his back sent him shunting forwards, straight into Silenos’ thrusting lance. The meeting of keratin and metal was like nails on a chalkboard.

  Once more the Dark Lord was sliding back, heels digging trenches, soil hissing and spitting as water was vaporized by the frictive grind of metal. He stopped metres back, just in time to duck another of Silenos’ swings. This time he ducked right into a raising knee, catching the jagged barb Silenos had added to the tip right in his helmet. It scraped a chunk of, sending black flakes to rain away from him as he stumbled again.

  A dirty, simple brawling trick. Learned from Baird. Sometimes it was the simplest tactics which were most effective- Silenos had seen that much watching him spar with his Knights and grotesqueries.

  The mace came flying for Silenos, and he weathered it as it rebound from his head. His neck had been particularly reinforced, in this new form, with the Dark Lord’s strength and blunt instrument in mind. He stabbed again while his enemy was stumbling away, then the cannon rose once more.

  A bluff, and one which sent the Dark Lord scrambling back into Silenos’ next swing. Metal broke, limbs splayed, his opponent landed in a pile and scrambled back. Silenos chased him.

  It was almost disappointing to be faced with so insubstantial an adversary- with Lilia and Galukar keeping the Entities at bay there was no contest between them at all.

  The Dark Lord was up as fast as ever, though slightly clumsier now. His armour seemed to be slowly surrendering to Silenos’ assaults, resilience pushed past its limits by Shaiagraznian magic, wearer not far behind. And yet…

  A confidence underpinned his motions that hastened Silenos to re-engagement. Even still, he was too slow.

  Silenos saw the Entities burst into reality between them, screaming, roiling infants wearing the entropic placentas of their own un-existence and sloughing them off into showers of decaying matter and discordant energy. They were wailing, convulsing faceless things whose forms he barely had time to even try and perceive before they, too, broke down. Consumed by the Dark Lord, all of their magical intensity compressed and imbibed into his own.

  He felt his enemy’s power grow, and realised in an instant that he had been hasty. This fight was only just starting.