Life with Firo would take some getting used to. She kept Alisson’s body clean, knew everything about him, and was always with him. It felt like he had no privacy, quite literally living with something else in his skin. Firo normally siphoned blood and other resources from Alisson’s body. He offered her food, but apparently eating his prepackaged resources was easier for a parasite like her.

  She strongly implied that her presence would require him to eat a good deal more. Annoying, and potentially deadly, but the power was well worth it. He tried to just imagine her as a tool on his belt, not as another thing, and that mostly overcame the dreading issue of privacy. Firo could diffuse through his armor to be on the surface of his clothing when times called – He tried climbing a tree with her help, and the slime provided grip where none existed.

  The same boon could be extended to his swordplay. He tried drilling with Dascha to break in his new body, he was able to manage, but it would take getting used to. Firo could move his blade within his grip – He had no need for this in his already refined technique, but there were an infinitesimal amount of new techniques he could create with this ability.

  On Firo’s suggestion, he also tried punching a tree at full strength. It didn’t hurt. The tree shook, and leaves fell from it, creating a loud noise – But it didn’t hurt. He asked Dascha to punch him in his belly. Even undefended and without taking up a stance, the best she could manage was to make him stumble back a foot, with no real damage.

  His testing would come to a head when they spotted a column of Monolithians. They were headed back to their headquarters, and had several wagons and horses. Alisson decided that it wouldn’t hurt to make one of their mobile killing teams go missing. He would be gone from this island within the week anyway.

  Opting not to open an attack with the Moonlight Cannon for fear of escaping enemies reporting it, and to its general visibility to any nearby forces, he simply attacked the front of formation.

  He withdrew the pendant from his neck, and held it up, muttering a quiet prayer.

  “Let none weep the passing of those before us. An unexpected and pointless death of filth that serves only to enrich the world.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Firo’s strength allowed him to lunge in an animalistic pounce, and impale a rider off his horse. The Monolithians were stunned for a moment as Alisson rose and walked toward them, holding his pendant by his cheek, his tails swaying behind him.

  “Lay to rest the souls of those slain by the hands of these men, for their revenge will have come at last.”

  Alisson tucked the pendant into his collar and blitzed forward. They stood little chance. Alisson killed the majority of them before they could put up a fight. He slammed his hilt into the helmets of some, to let them writhe in pain or unconsciousness as he passed them. Those that he allowed to ready themselves to fight him weren’t all that great as swordsmen. Perhaps they were lax from killing those that could not fight back for so long. Most of the men were physically larger than Alisson, but with Firo and his Opensen, there was no doubt that he now had an advantage in physical strength on every one of them.

  There were only a few left in due time. They had ran into the woods, a small group. Dascha rounded up near his backside, having finished off those Alisson had left her. He figured it was rude to deny her revenge. He pointed toward the men that were fleeing and she swung her sword around her back and broke into a quadrupedal sprint.

  Suffice to say, all the Monolithians were dealt with, and it gave him some good experience in fighting with Firo. Though he had killed them with ease, these were fighters among a high caliber in the world. A year ago, he probably would’ve fought for his life against such a large convoy of armored men alone.

  Dascha returned to him, dragging the bodies of three armored Monolithians that were each thrice her size. He wasn’t alone anymore, for one.

  One of the men was still alive, and Alisson wondered why she had kept him so, before she started to stab him in non-vital areas. She looked down at the man with her large, guileless eyes, as if she were a child stomping out ants.

  He stabbed the man through the head, ending his suffering. He looked to Dascha with a frown. “These men deserve worse, but we should not stoop to their level of mindless violence.”

  It was a bad habit that he had seen his men of the 51st sometimes slip into. Whether it was rage or taking a sadistic pleasure in the torture, getting emotional with combat was never something that Alisson saw as a positive. He didn’t care much if these scums suffered, but he did care if Dascha became just like them. She growled at him, and he had pull her by the scruff of her neck away from the battlefield to stop her from further stabbing the corpses of fallen Monolithians.

  He brought her close to his face, and lowered to her eye level, sharpening his expression. “Don’t growl at me.”

  He released her, and they continued on, Dascha apparently frightened into submission.

  They were soon upon the western tunnel, the one that led back to Sidonia. Waiting outside the tunnel, were a familiar pair of humans. Shepard and Arciel.

  ***