Adamant Blood

Mark kept his Union of Civilization and Anarchy going with his heart, drumming out the destruction of the goblins with every beat—

Roaring flames traveled fast overhead, past the break in the canopy. One streamer, then another and another and then four at once. They were Eliot's fire-spreading rockets, for sure. In the ensuing seconds of goblins at civil war, the world rumbled soon and fires blossomed in the dark undercity, far beyond the open-air training zone. Mark felt the goblins in several swaths of land over that way gain a frantic edge, and many died, but most survived. Did they band together? No. If anything they fought each other harder.

It was almost too easy to break a civilization.

Mark set that thought aside as he focused on the mithrilkinetic goblin ahead. The goblin was fading. Pushing too hard to defend from all sides. The goblin was still carving through its former friends but it would die like many things died to goblins; under too many goblins to fight. But Mark absolutely could not afford to stop the Union of Anarchy and Civilization.

Mark kept his society-destroying Heart Union going, but he changed up his Breathing. It was difficult to run two different Unions at the same time, and a lot of the nuance of Anarchy/Civilization was instantly lost, but he Breathed in Wakefulness and Breathed out Sleepiness, into the mithrilkinetic's enemies, first. All around the silver-slashing goblin, other goblins faltered. Mithrilkinetic suddenly went faster as it fully embraced the fight. It ended up fully influenced by the idea of Civilization, too. His brothers needed to be put down.

With this much focus on the mithrilkinetic, Mark could practically read his mind.

The other goblins were greedy bastards, and he never should have shown himself. Why did he show himself? He didn't know. Suddenly he just had to kill them all. What worth were they? Soldiers in a war against humans? Big fucking deal. All of them were going to die anyway once the big threats came out, so they might as well die now, and especially since they were trying to take his shinies. But it still hurt. The mithrilkinetic was openly weeping as he beheaded someone he had been trying not to kill, but he couldn't hold back any longer if he wanted to live.

And they had shinies, too.

The mithrilkinetic plucked necklaces from enemies. Grabbed bracelets from corpses. Hoarded stuff at his feet as he killed, killed, killed. He didn't want to do it, but the goblin was doing it anyway.

Mark felt kinda bad as he read the sad goblin. Just to kill for the necklace of a former friend? The mithrilkinetic held his brother's necklace in his bloody hand as he killed four more goblins sleepily rushing him. The trinket was carved wood and it stung the goblin's hand, digging into his palm, but only because the goblin was gripping it so tightly.

And then the mithrilkinetic's former friends and brothers were dead, and the mithrilkinetic couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. He couldn't even bring his metal back into his body.

He fell asleep onto the gore of his former students and friends.

Mark kept his sleepy Union going until Isoko could take over.

Derek moved in first, though, and grabbed all the mithril he could find and soon several Dereks were holding up several long, very thin curves of metal. One of them asked, "How much!"

Quark threw out a number and Mark said, "Quark says looks like 3 kilos."

Isoko was almost there, asking along the way, "What's the going rate?"

"120k per kilo." Mark added, "Keep him alive and asleep, Isoko. I have to switch back to the other… other thing I'm doing."

Mark waited for them to take over for him. He only had so much mental capability. Other people, like Derek and Isoko, only had Unions that were given to them by Freyala. But Mark had the real deal, so any mental confusion tended to degrade his Unions fast. Usually he was good about keeping his Unions in line, but running one type of Union with his heart and another with his breath was mentally taxing, so he was glad when Isoko finally latched on to the goblin with a Union of sleep. Derek could only do Good/Bad, and Mark couldn't even tell exactly what kind of Good/Bad he was doing right now.

Mark switched back to a full Union of Anarchy/Civilization—

Instantly, he noticed things he had not noticed before.

"Shit."

One very bright, very strong vector, was headed this way, and it was almost here.

Mark yelled out, "Incoming!"

Mark set down. Derek scattered in every direction, two of Derek grabbing the mithrilkinetic goblin and hauling him away, while Isoko rushed that way as well, keeping the goblin asleep, and then the incoming vector was here.

A goblin slammed down into the ground like a tiny, solid green god, cratering the battlefield. Sleeping and dead bodies scattered… And Mark had trouble understanding what he was seeing, because it was too crazy to understand.

The goblin stood as tall as he could, chest out, back straight, and he was wearing white and gold. Specifically, the white and gold of Glorious Man. Not a suit; never a suit. Where would a goblin even get webweave in his size? Maybe a child's costume, sure. This goblin simply wearing a ratty old shirt with Glorious Man's colors on it, looking like something a kid or hero-fan would wear out to a new movie or a gathering of other hero-fans. Or maybe a very cheap Halloween costume. It was probably a cheap Halloween costume for an adult, actually. The goblin also had on a bright yellow, sequined belt, cinched around his waist. It matched Glorious Man's gold belt, but only in generalities. No pants, of course. Didn't need 'em. His shirt was big enough to be a tunic and he wore it like one.

Mark would have already moved to kill the goblin, but he was just so fucking weirded out right now.

The goblin opened his mouth, and out poured a voice as strong and solid as the world's #1 superhero, "Evildoers! I am here to stop your murderous rampage! Lay down your arms and powers and this will go easier for you!"

A Glorious Man impersonator.

Yeah.

That's what this was.

Every other Derek all across the field muttered a variation of, 'The fuck?'

Mark agreed with that sentiment, and he found himself yelling out, demanding an answer, "Where the fuck did you get the costume?"

Isoko rushed away with her Union of Sleep/Wakefulness lodged firmly in the mithrilkinetic goblin while Derek's Union of Good(wakey-wakey!)/Bad(sleepy-sleepy) did as much as it could do. They got the fuck out of there.

The Glorious-wannabe eyed the sleeping mithril blooded mithrilkinetic, but his vector was fully, completely, on Mark. With a deep, strong voice, he called out, "Greetings, Blackvein! It is good we finally meet on the field of battle, and I can end your threat once and for all! Or perhaps I can even convince you to join us!"

He sounded even more like Glorious Man.

Mark had no idea how he felt right now.

Pissed? Yes. Absolutely.

Kinda really mad? Oh, yeah. More and more furious by the second.

"The FUCK kinda kaijuSHIT are you on?" Mark pointed at the awful goblin, yelling, "You have no right to wear his colors at all, you damned goblin!"

"Huff at you! Huff at you, I say!" The goblin championed, "Goblins help goblins! And you are obviously harming my brethren, so have at you!"

The guy was quick.

Mark moved to the side right as the Glorious-wannabe leapt through Mark's former space, and then straight through a Power-enhanced tree, breaking the world at his passage. He had almost hit Mark, and he had almost been able to stop himself on that pillar. According to his vector he had been planning on hitting the pillar and then rocketing back at Mark, too, but he didn't know his own strength.

A flicker of embarrassment accompanied the goblin's vector as he sailed off into the dark, back the way Mark and them had originally come. The canopy held; one broken pillar was not enough to bring down the neighborhood at all. But that broken pillar did hang there, and the canopy did sag, just a little, as millions of tons of plant matter overhead all weighed down, just that much more.

Mark frowned at the destruction, at the coming collapse, and at how the goblin didn't really care about Mark's Anarchy or Civilization. It was here to put Mark down, one way or another, his entire attention focused on Mark, completely.

The goblin floated around, turning slowly and then flying back into view. Some part of the canopy cracked and fell down behind him as he floated in the sun again. He called out, "I would have made it painless! But now we must get serious! Ha ha!"

Mark was beyond rage right now, but Mark also lived in the moment, and so he called back, "I'ma call you Goofy Goblin! So come on, Goofy!" Mark spread his adamantium wide, making wires and blades, and said, "Come get it!"

Goofy 'stood tall' as he floated, fists raised, chest out. "When I reincarnate you as my brother, we will have a talk about what is good and what is evil."

… He was being 100% serious. He believed what he was saying.

Mark went on the offense. He unspooled some adamantium into a splash of monowire, spraying it in Goofy's direction.

Goofy twisted his hand in the air and caught that monowire and grinned.

But Mark curled that monowire around Goofy's neck, chest, and waist, and yanked backward, slicing Goofy into pieces—

Goofy popped like a soap bubble. His vector vanished.

… Dead?

No.

A projection of some sort. Where was he?

"… The fuck?!" Mark shouted. "I can't find him anywhere! Quentin!"

Quentin spoke up, "Analyzing now. Archmages are 2 minutes from your location. Please hold—"

"He's coming back!" Mark said, as he turned his propeller blade into caltrops and launched backward, away from where he had been. Mark sensed the vector in the air flicker more toward him, angling right for him. He couldn't see the goblin, but he was right up— "There."

Goofy came in like a meteor from the open sky and Mark launched out of the way at the last moment.

The goblin cratered the ground and reoriented fast, right at Mark, and Mark met the goblin's forward attack with a sudden spear thrust, right into Goofy's intact, Glorious-Man-tunic. The goblin grabbed the head of the spear, Tactile Telekinesis warring for control of the weapon, but the spear was Mark's, entirely, and so he exploded the shaft of the spear, turning it into monowire that whipped forward, around the contested part of the spear, wrapping and crushing the goblin—

Goofy popped again, like a soap bubble—

Mark noticed it, this time. The goblin's vector did not vanish like a dead thing's vector. It did not unspool and fade away. Instead, it popped, too. Mark was sure of it this time. He had never seen it himself, but he had read about it.

Mark rapidly said, "Possible Seer goblin, body-projector-type. Analysis, please."

Quark was faster than all the guys back at command, but probably only because he was hooked in back there, and also here, to see what Mark was seeing. Quark said, "90% confirmed as postulated. How is your Union faring?"

"It's not even touching him— I am touching him, but Goofy doesn't seem to care. Either a construct with programmed action, or something else," Mark said.

"Analyzing!" Quentin replied.

Silence.

Dying goblins. Raging goblins. Fires burning in the undercity, illuminating the dark in every direction. Yelling, screaming, dying. Derek was pretty much everywhere, grabbing weapons and killing goblins who were fighting themselves and each other, on the far side of the open undercity. Isoko was watching over the sleeping mithrilkinetic. A goblin woke up next to Mark and he killed it and then every other sleeping goblin in the area as he waited for Goofy to return—

"Incoming," Mark told everyone.

Goofy tried to crash into Mark.

Mark dodged, whipping adamantium wires at Goofy.

Goofy spun backward, out of the way of the black lines, and then he grabbed some corpses, moving fast, to fling the corpses at Mark with startling speed and force. The corpses splashed against him, uselessly, and Mark didn't even bother defending himself. Blood and viscera dripped down his scales, onto his webweave—

Goofy empowered one corpse with some TT, and Mark dodged that one.

The empowered corpse still clipped a floating bit of adamantium and Mark jerked backward as the force of the slam transferred into all the rest of his astral body. Mark recovered fast, but Goofy recovered faster, and this time he was a speedster, moving too fast, right into Mark's lower legs, claws out.

Mark sliced him into ribbons and Goofy popped, again.

Two other vectors came from overhead, into the arena.

It was the archmage twins. Lancer and Buckler.

Lancer yelled out, "That the one? In the girl's arms?"

Mark said, "Isoko. Hand him over."

Mark didn't have time to question if those two had seen the fight, and decided to not get involved. That way lay anarchy.

Lancer landed next to Isoko and Buckler landed on her other side, and for the briefest of moments Mark panicked at Isoko's proximity to the archmages. But then Isoko bowed and deposited the goblin on the ground and stepped out from between the archmages.

Buckler flicked a hand and a sphere of force surrounded the goblin, lifting it off of the ground and separating it from Isoko's sleepy Union. Mark's Union didn't reach the goblin, either, and he certainly didn't care to include the archmages on either half of the Union. The goblin woke up in parts, even as Isoko spoke out about how it was waking up, but Buckler didn't care. He grinned as the goblin woke up.

The goblin, fully awake and furious at his capture, spilled mithril out from every angle, slamming into his cage. Every bit of mithril stuck to the clear force bubble and then separated outward, and soon the goblin was not furious, but fearful. His metal was gone. Buckler collected the lines of mithril into one hand, like he was holding a bouquet.

The mithrilkinetic goblin yelled, "My metal! Give me back my metal! MINE!"

Buckler ignored the goblin and told Mark, "You're doing this looting all wrong, by the way. You got Union, yeah! You should pump Greed into them and make them all fight over everything good, and then you pick it up from the corpses—"

"Incoming," Mark said, looking up.

Goofy appeared and tried to slam into Mark, but he slammed into a ball of Force, instead, and then he was trapped. He was more surprised than hurt, though, and then, while Buckler was gearing up to say something, Goofy spun around in the sphere, gauging the battlefield and looking right at Buckler, before he intoned, "I will have to get serious, I see!"

And then Goofy slammed into the edge of the force sphere, right out of it, moving at super speeds, right at Buckler—

"Nope!" Buckler said, waving a hand.

Goofy slammed down into the ground, and then several tens of meters further down into the ground. Mark wasn't sure what even happened, but it was like the world had just changed angles and Goofy's vector had been changed along those angles… or something.

Buckler said, "You kids have fun now! Try to be more greedy, Mark! Goblins always gather the neatest things, but they're hidden!"

Lancer asked his brother, "Drop off the cargo and go thieving here?"

"Oh yeah, sure! Let's do that. I'm tired of mushrooms anyway."

Buckler and Lancer took off into the sky, the mithrilkinetic goblin trapped in a force sphere between them, the two of them looking and feeling very particular about how they flew with the goblin between them. Mark imagined he was seeing exactly what Aurora meant when she warned Mark against ever getting directly between the two of them. They could do some sort of fully-controlled… force zone between them? Seemed like something Tartu would do with a Domain, actually.

… Mark looked down at the ground. Goofy's vector was still down there, but he was punching his way upward. Mark asked command, "What about this projector-Seer goblin?"

Quentin spoke up, "We're almost ready to— Okay. Grand Mage Solari says to just kill it and keep killing it. Good news: the goblin village is estimated to be 50% dead from whatever Union you're putting out." And then Quentin said, "This is a private line, now. Is that a new Union? I feel like I need to log that under capabilities, but if it's some Inquisitor thing, then tell me and I won't take it into account."

Mark felt the goblins killing each other, everywhere, so… 50% dead? Fuck. Maybe? Mark said, "It's something I tried out and I'm not even sure why it's working so well. But it is… I'm gonna switch to desolation and then sand the area, and then do this again. The goal is to put everyone on the same level so the goblins can kill each other faster. Fire will help. How does that sound?"

Quentin was pretty much the main tactician for the settlement, so Mark valued his opinion in that way.

Quentin hummed, then said, "Moving back to the main line," and then he continued, "Preparing to sand the village. Expectation is that the trees will fall into the sand and the goblins will mostly not. It'll be a kill zone everywhere but out in the open. Get to a fully open area."

Isoko was already running Mark's way, and Derek began to decrease in number, many of him popping and flowing back into smaller numbers. For a moment, Mark was worried about a multi-goblin situation, but whatever Derek did was not the same popping that Goofy did when Mark 'killed him', so this wasn't a multi-glorious-goblin situation. Just a seer-goblin situation—

Aurora came on the line, "The mithril goblin is secured. The archmages are going after the Glorious Man goblin theorized main body. Entertain the goblin. Do not pop it, Mark."

Derek mumbled nearby, "Orders changing every damned other minute."

Mark grinned and almost chuckled at that, but this was an open line. He said, "Affirmative— Ah. Here he comes again."

Isoko ran away alongside several Dereks.

Mark looked at the sky and wove a very obvious trap of black blades in front of himself… And Goofy slowed down, just a little. And then a lot. Goofy hovered in the sunlight overhead, and Mark guarded himself with wires of adamantium.

Goofy said, "Go away, Blackvein, or I will break my oath to not harm innocents and descend upon your settlement and Bite everyone."

Mark actually felt really, really good to hear the goblin say that. Relief, like a warm bath, flooded across his body, and Mark smiled, looking up, saying, "Glad to know that you really are just a monster."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

The goblin had a deep, sudden, and very internal panic. His eyes went wide, his mouth fumbled some words... and then he ignored whatever he was thinking and donned his 'mask' of delusions, proudly saying, "We are what humanity has made us."

"Kaijushit. You're what the demons made you, and the demons try to be in control of everyone and everything in this world. If you cared at all about being a good person, like the man you're wrongly emulating, then you'd go after some real enemies instead of setting up on our doorstep and threatening to Bite us if we don't allow you to Bite us." Mark continued, "Like! Come on, you murderous, treacherous, evil green shit. You ain't fooling anyone with your impersonation of humanity. Not now, not ever."

The goblin found his footing, so to speak. He floated tall, saying, "We can take legs and Bite them and keep the Bite from progressing up the body, and then let the donor walk away with newly grown legs. No harm, no foul. Or we can Bite fat bellies and make better goblins, and keep the blessing from killing. Or we can take wrongheaded people like you and Bite them, and reincarnate them into everlasting power, as an enemy of the demons, Blackvein. We might have started off on opposite sides of that War for Life, thousands of years ago, but we're not on opposite sides anymore. We're warriors that have been unleashed, and we will have our revenge on the demons eventually. Will you join us, as a green brother?"

Mark had a surreal moment.

And then Mark said, "This is the single most surreal shit that has ever happened to me— No. I will not join you, in any way, shape or form. I will, however…" Mark almost talked about Total War. The goblins were bringing Total War, after all. Might as well kick it off now! But that would have been incredibly stupid. Instead, Mark said, "I will listen to whatever you have to say. Go ahead."

Goofy perked up, and then he landed on a short pole that brought him face to face with Mark, though several meters still separated them from each other. Goofy intoned, "We need not be enemies! We could be best of friends! What you have done to my people and what you are doing, and will likely continue doing, is not the end of diplomacy; it is merely the beginning. The Elders tell us that long ago goblins were human, and we are the result of humanity trying to make something better of itself. Something untouchable by demons or dragons or any of the great powers of this world, and, I suppose, your Earth as well. We became what you could become, because when you take the Bite, you become immortal. This body that you see before you? This is merely the current incarnation of my immortal self. I have died ten thousand times, and I will die ten thousand more. But I will come back each time, to lead our people to greatness! To bring humans and goblins together, and, through Bites both consensual and not, I will bring everyone into the Great Green Glory, and erase the separations between all people—"

Quark transcribed messages onto Mark's vision, behind the goblin. 'The archmages cannot find Goofy's main body and they were forced to abandon the search. There are 15-ish superhero-level goblins in Alpha city. They don't think Goofy is a Seer. He might be a soul-hopper.'

The goblin continued, his ranting turning even more crazed, "And once the separations are gone, we'll all join hands in glorious harmony! We will bring a Great Green Glory against the demons, and rip down the moon, and it won't matter if billions die in the moonfall because they'll be born again! No one will ever die again!" The goblin held out a hand, grinning, hopeful, asking, "Will you join me in the Last War? Where we kill all of our oppressors and bring everyone under the same Great Green Glory?"

Text popped up again, saying, 'This is Aurora. Abandon the fight. This is me grounding you. Pull back.'

"… I had been wrong before," Mark said, "About how the previous thing was 'the most surreal shit ever'. This, right here, is the most surreal… You know what?" Mark took a moment to think.

Goofy left his hand hanging out there. His vector remained… 'honorable', Mark, supposed— No. There was no 'supposing'. Goofy's vector felt completely, 100% serious. That meant he was delusional in the way that crazy people got delusional; completely buying into their own shit.

Mark said, "From my perspective, you're killing people and turning their meat into goblin meat, while nibbling at their souls to take their Powers for your own. There is no reincarnation at all. There is just a green plague, mocking humanity with words like 'brotherhood' and 'honor' and 'let's all join together to kill the oppressors together', because you're part of the problem, mister goblin. You are a tool of oppression from on high, and therefore you must be eradicated, completely and without remorse. But you go ahead and tell yourself you're doing something good for the people you Bite. I, and all of your brothers know the truth. You, yourself, are an anomaly. There are no other goblins like you, trying to bring people together, because all the goblins that act that way are acting as lures. As mimics, to get people to drop their guards. And you are a very good mimic. You have even got yourself believing what you say."

Goofy's hand faltered. His vector felt injured.

"It's mimicry, Goofy," Mark continued. "You're mimicking human nature, in an effort to get us to drop our guard. Any second now, the real attack is gonna come, and you're gonna fight alongside your brothers who want nothing more than to Bite and breed, and you're gonna convince yourself, in that moment, that they're just misguided, and if you stand with them a little bit more then you can 'show them the way' to your Great Green Glory!

"But the truth is that they only listen to you because you have power. They humor you because you have power. They don't believe any of this shit you're talking about at all. Every inroad you make with every human, every civilization, in your entire life going forward, will be corrupted by the brothers at your side—"

"LIAR!!!" Goofy yelled, face filled with hate, vector faltering hard—

And then Mark's Union of Anarchy/Civilization touched him, at that moment.

Anarchy sunk in.

And the sky opened with red light.

Mark suddenly felt very, very tired, but not too tired that he couldn't rush away from the light. He backed up, sealing over his sluggish adamantium, right as Goofy yelled something unintelligible. Mark was too tired to understand anything, but he knew he needed to get away, and he needed to switch his Union to Good/Bad, because vectors were swarming all around him—

It was like waking up into a sea of acid-jawed ants. Mark's entire body hurt, and he couldn't feel his arms and feet, and his face was gone, for sure. His helmet saved him, but it did not save his jaw or the top of his chest and neck.

Pain.

Pain everywhere.

And then Isoko was there, and she shouldn't have been, because Mark felt superpowered goblins coming in from the sky overhead, but she latched on anyway with a Union of Pain/Comfort, taking all of Mark's pain for herself and the world. Mark's mind cleared instantly, but now he was in a fog halfway removed from everything else.

Mark had no idea what was happening, or where everyone was, exactly, but he knew enough.

Goofy was raging at the sky, at someone up above. He flew up that way.

Isoko was 50 meters away; too close.

Dereks were all around and over half dead; whatever had struck Mark had a splash zone, and that splash zone went very, very far.

12-or-so goblin vectors were overhead, inside some sort of specialty container; Mark didn't understand it, but the goblin vectors were inside the container, which was itself a goblin vector.

Mark Unioned with Good and Bad, shoving his pain out into every goblin out there, except for Goofy, who seemed to be pissed off at the goblins high overhead. Mark's eyes did not regrow fast enough, but Quark was there to help, in a way he had done before; he projected light directly into Mark's visual nerves.

Mark's eyes were gone but he could still see everything in greyscale, for now.

He looked up, even as he moved to the side, out of a dissipating beam of fire and light.

11 goblins floated around a central goblin, in a manner that was not ritualized or organized at all. They all wore different sorts of clothes, with two goblins wearing capes and four wearing robes, though they were all ratty things. The central goblin had a big staff with a gnarl at the top, curled around a sparkling gem of some sort; Mark couldn't tell the color at all.

All around those 11 was a large, balloon-like goblin, pale and barely visible, and easily 40 meters wide. Some sort of balloon body? Maybe. He was kinda transparent, and he had the most evil look on his face, his fangs large and dripping.

Goofy punched toward the configuration of goblins, yelling something, and then the staff-wielding goblin gestured with his staff. A brilliant beam of light rushed across the sky, focused outside of the balloon-goblin's body, and smashed into Goofy, but Goofy endured, rushing forward, and popping the suddenly-annoyed balloon goblin.

Balloon goblin twisted like rubber, flexing into an ooze that surrounded Goofy and held him down, though Mark saw Goofy try to punch outward. All Goofy could do was distend the rubber some.

9 goblins fell toward Mark, fangs dripping.

The staff wielder and one more remained in the sky.

Quark's voice became the only voice Mark could hear, as he spoke against the bones in Mark's ears, "Run fast. Full countermeasures are on their way."

Mark ran into the undercity, grabbing Isoko with a band around her waist, and then she was holding on, gasping for breath, his adamantium caltrops practically skipping off of the ground, caltrops moving at the speed of thought—

One of the goblins was a high speedster; Quark estimated him in the 20x-range. He easily dashed around Mark, keeping up with his adamantium flight, laughing for taunts, but then Mark spun wires all around and clipped the goblin at the thigh. The goblin was too fast to injure him more than that. The goblin tsk'd and broke away, but he remained close. His vector was focused on Isoko, who was still there, still in a Union of Pain/Comfort with Mark.

Isoko gave the Pain to the goblin and suddenly the goblin jerked off of his path, into the darkness, yelling out something that even made it through Mark's broken ears. Isoko might have laughed at that, but Mark was delirious now, and Isoko was getting very scared.

Mark had imagined himself untouchable out here, but that staff-wielding goblin, or maybe the one back there with the notebook and the floating pens, were responsible for coordinating and concentrating the super-goblins into a cohesive force. Something they could spring on outsiders if the outsiders got 'uppity'.

There were still tricks, though, and Mark felt one of them coming up.

He just needed to survive the next few minutes.

Mark raced into the burning dark of the undercity, while the goblins came alive overhead, civilization returning fast once Mark's Union of Anarchy and Civilization wasn't active. Artillery from monster-hunting spear-chuckers and mortar-launchers crashed into the ground around Mark's flight. Mark could dodge where the goblins were aiming, but holy shit, did some of them have really bad aim. They shot in his path and Mark dodged right, and the goblin thought they had missed, but then the explosive-laden spear almost hit Mark, and Quark's early warning, marking his forward path as right-into-the-weapon was the only reason Mark dodged it.

The explosive spear blossomed behind Mark and Isoko, bringing light to the dark.

Mark was still running Good/Bad, but he felt another sort of Union inch into his consciousness, as the entire city was now focused on killing him.

This, right here, is what Mark expected to use against the goblins, to kill them, but Anarchy/Civilization had worked out very, very well, so he had stuck to that one. Now, it was time to switch to the big guns.

Mark braindanced with a Union of Life, taking in everything Good about the goblin city, and giving them back all the Bad they tried to give him. It wasn't quite as effective as it could have been, but with the entire city and its main defenders now racing at Mark, through the dark, it was as powerful as it could have been.

Mark's flesh regrew in a black-lightning flash, his scales flexing over new limbs and new skin.

Sight and sound returned.

Isoko had taken a bit of damage, but Mark flexed her to full strength as well, and she practically shone platinum, glowing in Mark's adamantine-black grip around her waist—

"The ritual we did!" Isoko yelled, trying to remind Mark of his best possible buff, in the moment.

Mark wasn't sure it would even work, and the speedy goblin was coming this way again and he was pissed, but Mark Unioned with Surety-directness-force and Clumsiness-blindness-deafness.

The speedy goblin kept coming but... he slowed down and stood in the dark. What was he chasing after again? He had no idea.

Mark and Isoko raced forward, getting away, with Isoko struggling not to laugh in joy at the moment.

All of Derek was already dead, unfortunately.

Mark's heart beat hard as fuck—

A coruscating line of red, flaming light, blasted through the underdark of the goblin city, aimed a hundred meters to the side; a wide shot aimed wildly, with no attention to detail at all.

Quark spoke up, "The settlement's forces are gathered for a counter push. Return to the battlefield and do that disruption-Union again on the count of 45. 44. 43…" The countdown transitioned into numbers just for Mark.

Mark asked Isoko, "Ready to go back!"

Isoko was sarcastic, filled with the ambivalence of someone who had almost died, worried about dying and worried about everything, but she roared out, "Kill all monsters!"

Mark whipped around and kept himself and Isoko hidden even as he said into his coms, "Sorry we couldn't keep you alive, Derek!"

Derek, in the command center, said, "Go get 'em, team!"

Mark nodded, and then he told Isoko, "He's an alright guy."

"He's cool!" Isoko said, as she tapped the claw-like hand around her waist. "Chair!"

Mark turned the claws into a chair and he was almost back through the fiery dark, to the training zone in the sunlight. The other goblins were there and the staff-wielder was casting some sort of magic, sending out pulse after pulse of power all around. Mark glanced at the clock and saw he had 20 seconds left, so he rushed around the zone, getting better eyes on everyone.

Mark reported, "Speed-goblin location unknown. Staff-goblin sending out detection magic? Notebook-goblin floating alongside Staff, taking notes or something. Some weird Power. Caped goblins in the air and looking for us. Isoko and I are currently invisible—"

The detection-pulse from Staff-goblin severed Mark's Union with him and Notebook, and both of the goblins instantly roared out something as they pointed at Mark and Isoko—

Mark reconnected with his Union of hiding as he raced out of where he had been, leaping up into the air and grabbing onto the underside of the vine-like canopy. Speedster goblin reappeared right where Mark and Isoko had been but then he turned to a blur, circling the area fast in an expanding spiral. Mark hung on to the thick canopy overhead. It was practically a raft of vines and branches all woven together and half-dead because of Mark's various Unions and—

A pulse of detection magic went out again, and this time Mark felt it as that pulse went through the canopy. Staff-goblin's gnarled cane, with its sapphire-looking core, marked him more as a plant mage than a stone mage. Maybe he was a Landshaper? Probably. Mark should have realized that, actually. He should not have touched the plants.

The detection effect was instantaneous.

Staff goblin pointed.

Notebook took a note, a floating pen marking the air with a great big check mark.

Mark and Isoko, all of them, including their astral bodies, started to glow violently pink.

Mark was the center of a kilometer-wide pink jellyfish, countless lines pointing at him from every direction.

Every goblin, everywhere, saw him.

Uh oh.

The timer reached 1 second.

Mark rushed to the backside of a tower, even as Speedy showed up on the underside of the roots, feet tapping on Mark's pink-glowing adamantium like it was steps, claws out, aiming for Mark's neck. Mark felt time slow down. He imagined this was where he was going to die.

There was a reason speedsters were the most dangerous monsters, after all.

But then there was a human boot and vector in Mark's view, tapping on bits of his floating adamantium, like a dancer, dancing across a pond, wind-slashing at the goblin.

The speedster goblin broke off.

Mark didn't see all of him, but Quark took notice. The human boot belonged to Yoro Windrunner. Aurora's master of secrets. High Speedster and Wind Shaper.

Mark had never felt such relief. He had no idea of what happened with the rest of Yoro's fight, but he didn't need to. Mark switched to Anarchy and Civilization, targeting the human vectors with Civilization-organization and destroying every coordinated goblin response.

Mark felt Lancer and Buckler and he watched as spikes of Force lensed the air, force crashing through Notebook, destroying that goblin completely, and then bouncing off Rubber.

Yoro's fight was flashes in the dark, Mark's Union barely able to keep up with tracking Yoro at all.

The caped goblins died to crushing smashes of force from Buckler.

General Kandon Valen descended from the sky like a sliver of bent reality. He had nothing on Aurora's size and power, but he made up for it in solid connection and personal endurance. The caped goblins twisted and died as Kandon flowed toward them, the touch of his Tactile Telekinesis-enhanced Telekinesis easily ripping them apart with the barest touches of his basic long sword.

More rockets crossed the sky and exploded, fiery, across the city, into the canopy.

Mark watched as the dark canopy began to burn even more. Eliot's rockets had landed closer this time.

Time sort of happened as it often did in massive, decided fights; time moved on.

From there, it was a normal fight between a cacophony of warriors, half of one side in civil war with each other, the other half, Mark's half, in a Union of Civilization, conquering. No more tricks to pull. No more enemies to be had.

Lee and Sam, Sky Shaper and Threadmaker, formed a cordon around the entire goblin city, tornadoes turning land and trees to mulch with monowire-like threads, forming a flaming blockade for all escaping goblins.

Command pulled out everyone, including Isoko, when the main battle was done, except for Mark, who stayed behind to sand the entire place and disrupt all hiding holes of all goblins everywhere.

Mark became a roaming disruption, Union spilling out Bubbles and Earth into the world, into the broken trees and turning them into mulch, into the ground and uprooting everything living, rocks and boulders becoming aerated sand. Everything fell down, collapsing into sudden, roaring fire, as flames easily caught on the massive air-hockey-table that was the goblin city of Beta.

Mark left behind Beta like one leaves behind a forest fire. Whatever wasn't fully dead in there would soon be dead. Mark watched as the fruit of goblinfruit trees popped open under the flames and newborn goblins died in fires, having never really lived.

Alpha city had no defenders in it at all, so with Lee igniting Eliot's fires into storms, and Mark turning the land to sand and mulch, Alpha went down like Beta should have gone down; fast and complete.

Omega, the city over the mushrooms, was heavily injured by Lancer and Buckler, the two archmages having worked over the entire population of 18,000 goblins with an eye for treasure and power, taking everything they could and torturing the defenders on the way out. Omega proved to be the easiest to kill. The archmages had already done most of the preliminary work.

Also, the goblins of Omega, seeing Mark in the sky, all black and covered in spellwork, sent them all running. They were terrified of flying black things. They were easy to kill for that reason.

No fires helped with the mushroom city, though. Even the mushroom trees that the mushroom goblins had grown were immune to fire, and those mushroom-based goblinfruit trees sprayed anti-fire spores everywhere.

Sanding down Omega killed most everything, though, but it also brought the mushroom kaiju to the surface, which would have killed the kaiju itself in the long term, and no one wanted the kaiju dead. The kaiju was great for keeping the special mushrooms of the forest alive and healthy; producing all sorts of alchemical stuff that the settlement needed.

And so Buckler pushed the kaiju back under the ground, while Mark slowly, carefully, pulled his sanding Union back, settling the kaiju deep under layers of sand, dead goblins, and dead mushrooms. The mycelium kaiju would easily digest all of that stuff and probably sprout some mini-kaiju Shroomers like it had that last time, when Mark went and fought his first almost-kaiju, all those months ago.

Mark went back and re-sanded the first area, re-igniting the burning village, killing the few survivors that had managed to hold on and exposing some new fuel for a lot of young flame elementals. A lot of flame elementals spawned that day, and those elementals went on to burn and continue to burn the goblin menace from the land… Mostly.

In the distance, to the far north, 35 kilometers away, was an actual goblin city. It had a population of 50,000 goblins, according to current scans. Now that place was going to need real coordination to tackle. Once that place was gone, then all of the goblins in the local ecosystem would be dead.

Mark needed more tools in his toolkit before he went after that place.

Isoko felt the same way.