Nate careened through the air deeper into his hotel room as the explosion destroyed the outer wall. Wulfgar didn’t handle the sudden blast any better and Nate watched the Bloodborne Executioner impact the wall, catching himself with his one remaining arm. Then the broken slivers of wood caught up to him and painted the wall behind him with splatters of blood. Nate faced the same hail of wooden knives but they were deflected harmlessly off of his barrier.

Of the three, only Kiri stood firm, like a mountain before a storm, enduring the fire and fury. That didn’t mean she escaped the blast unscathed. The skin of her face cracked from the flames and a few rogue cuts appeared along her cheeks from the destroyed wooden wall. But even those minor injuries vanished as quickly as they came. Not that Nate had the time to stand and appreciate his sister's durability.

Before the flames had subsided, six figures were moving into the room. Covered in head-to-toe futuristic black suits with shiny, enamel coatings, he couldn’t tell their races or anything about them really except for their weapons of choice. Nate activated Conceptual Sight, allowing him to see the flows of mana around their assailants as well as thin tendrils of soul energy leading back out through the smoking hole in the wall. Around one of the assailants, the mana sparked and flared, clearly a Fire Mage. Around another were slipping streams of mana that reminded Nate of the Concept of Flow. The wielder held a dagger in each hand that Nate marked as Low-Divine Artifacts, designating that attacker as an Assassin. Then there was a Hammer-Wielder, a Metal Mage, and a Curse Mage.

Finally, with his glowing eyes filled with runic symbols and rainbow-light, Nate could see through the smoke to the sixth individual lingering outside. That one was tethered to all the five others by strings of soul energy that pulsed back and forth. Nate designated that one as Conductor, as they were clearly focused on communications.

Nate frowned when Assassin and Curse Mage immediately moved against him. Smart enemies were always a pain in the ass and, though he had expected a kidnapping or assassination attempt against Kiri and himself sooner rather than later, he still would’ve preferred if they were a little less competent. Curse Mage started throwing out spells, each one a small blob of yellow that snaked through the air towards Nate. At the same time, Conductor deployed some device at the entrance to the room. Instantly, Space firmed and Nate realised they were trying to shut down any teleportation abilities, no doubt having gotten information about his self-constructed spatial zone from his assessment when arriving on Fifth Scale.

Always with the corrupt officials, he griped. At least it shouldn’t cause any problems with my new method of teleportation.

Nate hadn’t remained still, using Life Imitates Art to shift himself out of the way of the Cursed Bolts. The movement put him in Assassin’s crosshairs and two daggers scraped over his barrier, depleting some of the mana reinforcing Nate’s defenses. The successful strike against him annoyed the shit out of Nate as the fight had barely started and they were already pressuring him. His mind went to work in response, coming up with his plan of attack.

These attackers weren’t Seeds. He could already tell that. However, that did mean that while they would have less Divine Energy to throw around, they also probably had levels in the low two-hundreds. As for Skill Levels, Nate couldn’t be sure, but either way, Nate was comfortable that he could outcompete them without spending more Divine Energy than he intended to collect. After all, one of the purposes of revealing their nature as Second Evolutions was to invite these very attacks so that they could guilt-free farm Divine Energy from the denizens of The Heartlands.

With that in mind, Nate’s plan was to avoid showing his trump card. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t show any of his cards though, as he’d prepared a few new ones.

“Eyes,” called Nate, closing his eyes as he witnessed Kiri avoid a whip of flame before punching the Metal Mage through a wall.

Then he activated Art Imitates Life, drawing on a painting of layered whites filled with runes for Light and Power. In response the room flashed a blinding, white light that blasted out the holes in the wall like beams from the heavens. In the instant that his opponents were blinded, Nate shifted his position in Reality and appeared behind Conductor. As Nate reached out to touch the attacker, he saw how the mana flows shifted, separating into layers, and Nate's hand passed straight through Conductor like he was grasping for smoke. Pervious, noted Nate, as Divine Energy flowed into him.

Conductor was already sliding to the side, leaving Nate’s hand behind. The moment Conductor had moved, he vanished, replaced by Assassin who was already driving two daggers up into Nate’s barrier. This time, the barrier showed momentary cracks from the strike as Nate was tossed backwards into the foliage of the trees outside of the hotel.

Back inside the room, Nate could see Kiri continuing to fight Metal Mage in close combat as Fire Mage blurred around on flaming winged boots, taking pot shots at her. Nate might’ve been worried if it wasn’t for the huge grin on Kiri’s face. He would’ve rolled his eyes if he had time but Assassin was on him again. Assassin’s daggers were giving off an eerie green glow and Nate could sense some kind of weakening curse in the mana flows around them. Nate shifted position again, the painting within his Regalia of the area changing his position, and, using mana to enforce the change in Reality, he appeared above the trees and floated using a Gravity Control rune.

He had a second or two to think before Assassin caught up and Nate assessed what he had learned. Taking out Conductor was going to be a pain. They seemed to be specialised in information gathering and avoidance, meaning they could keep guiding their team into optimal positions to attack Nate and Kiri. Coupled with the fact that it seemed like Assassin had a position swap Skill, which meant that while tactically taking out Conductor first was the best decision, it wasn’t going to work till Nate took out Assassin.

Then there was Curse Mage who, unless Nate missed his guess, was building a cursed zone on the sly. Most people might not have noticed the shifting mana around the hotel room as it slithered through the walls, slowly becoming polluted with whatever curse the mage was building. But Nate wasn’t most people, and his Conceptual Sight easily picked up on Curse Mage as he utilised one of Nate’s favourite tactics, area control. That wasn’t going to do.

“Art Imitates Life,” whispered Nate as he activated his ability.

Three paintings inside of his spatial zone crumbled to dust and gave birth to three swirling beings. The Sound Construct looked like pulsing air while the Illusion Construct looked identical to Nate. Finally, the Mana Control Construct looked like a swirling semi-liquid mass of blue in the shape of a person.

The Sound Construct met Assassin in mid air and the vibrations blasted the dagger-wielder away before giving chase. Nate himself vanished behind his own Illusion Rune while the Illusion Construct took his place, gazing down from on high, wearing a swirling robe of white and purple that shifted into new runic formations that bloomed in bright yellows and golds. The Mana Control Construct flowed towards the ground like a fast moving breeze and then vanished into the walls. Where it passed, Curse Mage’s mana was expunged as the Mana Control Construct, made from the Divine Sigil for mana, seized control.

For the first time, one of their opponents used Divine Energy, and Nate felt as Curse Mage started to take back control of the curse he was building. Nate matched him, sending Divine Energy into the Mana Construct and watching as it once more began to overpower Curse Mage.

No zone control for you, thought Nate, as he tracked Conductor vanishing into the room and using Hammer-Wielder for cover.

That same Hammer-Wielder had managed to keep Wulfgar under control, but even down an arm, the old Bloodborne Executioner was giving as good as he got. Assassin launched himself skyward, evading the Sound Construct and ignoring the Illusion Construct as he tried to once more break Nate’s barrier with his curse-enchanted Low-Divine daggers. Nate drifted backwards while altering gravity to send Assassin flying into the sky above. A pulse of Divine Energy coupled with the Concept of Nullification saw the attempt fail and Nate was forced to re-position again, costing him even more mana as he rewrote his position in Reality.

Appearing behind Kiri, Nate sent a splatter of paint onto his sister's neck, which reshaped itself into a Soul Durability Empowerment rune. Kiri was already laughing and moving away, fist blades extended from her Regalia as she dove into the fray with Metal Mage. Nate felt Kiri finally start to use Divine Energy to empower herself. Metal Mage was instantly on the back foot, rents opening in their shiny, black power armour as Kiri’s Blades of Destruction fed off her Divine Energy empowered strikes.

Nate had barely moved and already sensed Assassin about to appear behind him as his shadow shifted with foreign mana. The Sound Construct was dissolving into nothingness as some cursed mana circulated through it in a sickly red while the Illusion Construct had swapped to trying to harass Conductor, mostly unsuccessfully. Only the Mana Control Construct remained, feeding on the remains of the Divine Energy as it erased Curse Mage’s zone control.

He had hoped to conserve more of his Divine Energy but he was already down to half his mana from rewriting Reality so many times, and the entire time he had been on the defensive. The problem was something he had identified a long time ago. His constructs lacked intellect. They acted purely on instinct driven by their Conceptual natures. It made them predictable or worse, ineffective, at least against highly-trained and experienced individuals. For example, a crack assassination team, as Nate was convinced these people were trying to kill them, not capture them.

However, Nate had come up with a solution to this problem recently. What he needed was a pilot. Someone with a high-level of combat experience that could guide his Constructs. Someone who knew how Concepts related to each other and how to use various Concepts in unique and interesting ways. Someone just like him.

“Art Imitates Life,” he whispered for the second time as he superimposed two paintings over the top of each other.

The first was a blocky painting in purple and white filled with runes for the Concepts of Gravity and Control. The second painting looked like a fractal inside of a gem and contained the runes for Enclosed, Soul, and Copy. Divine Energy went into the ability as he forced the paintings to merge into one, empowering the end result. As the Construct formed, it appeared like a knight made out of hard purple lines, all angles and prisms.

Assassin appeared at the same time as the Soulbound Gravity Construct and immediately tried to flash away, vanishing in a puff of shadow, only to find themselves appearing only a few metres away. Nate sensed it as the Soulbound Gravity Construct condensed the space between itself and Assassin, locking the dagger-wielder in place like you would cram a toy into a box. Nate wanted to describe what happened next as movement, but it wasn’t. Not really. The Gravity Construct simply condensed the intervening space till it might as well not have existed, then launched a fist into the constricted Assassin. The blow demolished what was left of the room, Assassin exploding into fragments of mutilated flesh and broken bones.

Processed mana and Divine Energy rushed out and Nate drank most of it down, directing a little towards Wulfgar who was still in a fighting retreat against Hammer-Wielder. The small gift of Divine Energy was enough for the Lord-Prefect of the Adventurer’s Guild to hasten his regeneration, his arm reforming from liquid blood as he finally cleansed the last of the foreign mana. Once more able to use two arms, Wulfgar launched himself back into the fray.

At that moment a gentle pinging noise sounded throughout the area as Metal Mage's helmeted head bounced a few times onto the stone path outside of the hotel. Fire Mage made to run but Kiri was on them in a flash, enduring the aura of flames that burned her flesh as her scaled blade flashed forward. Nate sensed a nascent use of the Concept of Space as Fire Mage tried to teleport away. Forming a Space Control rune, Nate shut that plan down before it could begin, eviscerating the third attacker with tiny spatial rifts that were created in the wake of the failing Skill.

Curse Mage and Hammer-Wielder tried to run then, but Kiri blocked Hammer-Wielder’s escape as Wulfgar battered the individual down with a giant axe. As for Curse Mage, Nate heard him, and it was definitely a ‘him’ based on the voice, begging for mercy. Nate found he had none to give for these assassins. He sensed no Soul Bindings or Contracts. Nate’s painting shifted, now showing a thin beam of Pure Destruction piercing Curse Mage’s head. Then he altered Reality, making it so.

More Divine Energy flowed into him as Nate searched for Conductor. It was Kiri who returned with their corpse. Apparently being Pervious didn’t work when the attack was made against the Soul Energy within.

With all six attackers dead, Nate took in the damage done. The hotel itself was huge enough that it still seemed mostly intact. However the damage went well beyond Nate’s own room, with multiple floors of the hotel destroyed, along with their patios and the gardens that had decorated them. Debris was strewn all over the paths below with multiple Lesser Divines and mortals watching from a distance. Nate decided that Denizens of the area must not be warriors based on the fear on their faces.

Wulfgar had dutifully collected all six Orbs, along with a pile of Low-Divine Artifacts that included Assassin’s daggers and a few other pieces. Nate could sense the Divine Energy within all of them, the Orbs included. Coupled with the Divine Energy he had gotten from the battle, both from Concept identification and from killing the assassins, he estimated that he was going to come out almost one-hundred units of Divine Energy ahead of where he had started the night. Unless those that wished them harm escalated their attacks to include Seeds or far more Lesser Divines, then they were falling for his and Kiri’s scheme.

Nate was about to look for the owner of the hotel to apologise when two presences descended. One wore sleek black armour similar to the assassins while the other wore pristine blue and green robes in the style of the World Forger Sect.

“Worldhammer, what is the meaning of this?” demanded the armoured individual.

Nate spent a little longer taking in the famed Hammer that Forged A World. An elf of average height with bright blue eyes and short cut, white hair, Worldhammer gave the appearance of being old and wise without the wrinkles or signs of aging.

“It looks to me like one of your teams from Flux Industries made an attempt on the supposed Second Evolutions competing in the Tournament.”

Worldhammer looked at the corpses arrayed on the ground and made a tutting noise.

“Seems they weren’t up to snuff. You’re losing your touch Chairman Kalim. Your shameless attempt to steal a march on everyone else before the Reaping has even begun has damaged my city. You will pay to fix it.”

Kalim snorted, “This attack was unsanctioned. Flux Industries isn’t paying for anything. Go squeeze blood from a stone, Worldhammer.”

Nate could feel the tensions rising, but more importantly, he wanted to make a statement. He wanted to invite more attacks and make it seem like he had so much Divine Energy that he could waste it on frivolous things, or, in this case, some showboating. He wanted them all to think that killing him and Kiri would see them heavily rewarded with Divine Energy.

So, as the two Greater Divines looked like they were preparing to come to blows, Nate changed his painting within his Regalia, recalling exactly how the hotel had been earlier. Its every contour and wall, the grain of the wood and the trees that draped flowers over the patios, leaving beautiful lingering scents.

“There’s no need to fight, gentlemen,” said Nate with a smile.

The pair of Greater Divines spun to look at him as Nate released a burst of Divine Energy.

“Life Imitates Art.”

In an instant, Reality changed as though the battle had never taken place. The only evidence that remained was the blood on Wulfgar and Kiri, along with six corpses arrayed on the patio in front of Nate, as he stared down two Greater Divines with a polite smile plastered on his lips.