What seemed like an unstoppable force of undead flowed toward the demon army…and broke like waves on rock.

Vocare had put everything into that summoning and when her army disintegrated, there was nothing left. She collapsed.

Gorontok raged around him, four of the heroes were trying to keep him busy. They were losing. They had lost their undead army, their summoner, and they had lost their leader.

Lord Jjaro VII cleaved about him with his great two hander. A blood demon worked its way through the horde of lesser demons, but Lord Jjaro had anticipated this. Khoraga watched as the hellknight pointed at the demon and then clenched his fist, blinding the demon and causing great gouts of blood to pour from the orifices that covered its body.

“This is a rout!” Lord Jjaro shouted to anyone left alive who could hear him.

Khoraga scrambled to Djedkare’s body, saw she was alive, and took cover behind a ruined castle wall. She stood to fire a constant volley of arrows, looking back after each shot to see if Djedkare was moving.

“Djed! Djedkare!” Koraga tried to maintain arrow-fire on Gorontok while keeping cover behind the ruined castle wall. She couldn’t tell how badly off the talent was. She was alive, awake. Probably just in shock. But what was shock to a talent? Perhaps her mind was broken.

Koraga scurried out from behind cover and found the ruined talent, lying in the rubble, looking at the sky. She was alive, but unseeing, unsensing.

“Djed, we need you!” Khoraga shouted. “We need you!”

Xix flew around the demon’s massive head and pinpoint lances of white-hot flame jetted out of her mouth, stabbing at the demon lord who wasn’t fast enough to stop the dragon.

“You’re not like the rest of us!” Koraga gestured broadly to the raging battlefield around them. “Your powers don’t come from skill, or training, magic or prayer, science or machines.

“Your power comes from your will! Djedkare can you hear me!?” The battle was so loud.

The small Khemharan woman’s eyes spun in their sockets. She was looking up, trying to focus on the orc. The demon beast that was Gorontok loomed over them, but it was focused on the magma diver.

“You’re not like us! I’ve seen it! There is no limit to your power! No limit to what you can do!!”

Djedkare’s eyes focused on the orc finally. But her jaw was still slack.

“All you have to do…,” the beastheart extended her hand to the fallen talent.

“...is BELIEVE!”

Djedkare saw the offered hand, worked out what it meant. Arm shaking, her body trying to rebel against the mastery of the mind, she reached out to the orc.

They clasped arms. The contact, flesh on flesh, sent a shock of clarity through the talent. She wiped the blood from her eyes with her other hand. Pulled herself up.

Djedkare mastered herself. Was suddenly calm. More than calm. Determined. Ready. Possessed of singular intent. Fear was gone. She still held Khoraga’s arm.

“Thank you,” she said. Khoraga nodded and let go her grip. Took cover behind the ruined wall.

“If you’re gonna do something!” the metallic voice of the operator echoed out of the magma diver. “Do it NOW!”

She looked at her hands, her arms. Just flesh.

“Substance,” she said, “changes.” And her flesh crystallized into flexible steel. Khoraga saw her sink a little into the ground as her weight drastically increased.

She balled her hands into fists, held them rigid at her side. “Weight...is an illusion,” she said, and rose slowly into the air. Her ruined cloak whipped around her in the wind.

She looked at Gorontok and the demon sensed something, turned its head to look in her direction. It was twice the size of the castle.

She looked down at Khoraga who marveled at what she saw. “I’ve never done this before,” she said, almost wistfully.

“Everyone TAKE COVER!” Khoraga said, intuiting that something unprecedented was about to happen.

Djedkare, Talent, Special Agent of the Pharaoh, looked at the giant demon Gorontok who had turned to face her and her eyes looked like prisms.

“Time,” she said, “is an illusion.” And leaning forward with her fists held out in front of her, she sped faster than any arrow, faster than anything should move, directly at the Demon Lord. A line of prismatic color trailed behind her. There was a detonation in the sky as the air rioted against this affront to nature.

Then another explosion as the Talent slammed into the Demon Lord with all the force of a falling comet.

Gorontok reeled, but did not fall. Tentacles like worms erupted from its flesh and wrapped around Djedkare. Some tried to burrow into her flesh, but found only steel. The rest coiled around her and hurled her back to the ground. She slammed into the stone remains of a castle wall with a loud *clang* and, before she could recover, Gorontok vomited.

He vomited a long stream of acid blood and bile, a vast gout of heavy liquid that seemed endless. It ate away at the rock, at the ground, at everything, burning through granite like fire through dead leaves.

Eventually, Gorontok’s regurgitation ended. His army, the Abyssal Legion, paused awaiting orders from their commander. Silence dominated the battlefield. Gorontok leaned down to see what remained of his enemy.

In a pool of demon blood and bile, amongst a corroded ruin of a granite castle, stood a small Khemharan woman, her steel skin sizzling.

“Alright asshole,” Djedkare said. “My turn.” And a blast of prismatic energy erupted from her crystal eyes.