Just as Jay was wondering what his life had come to, the Ancient One and Mephisto sprang into action.

  The pocket dimension shrieked. The obsidian platform beneath their feet cracked in concentric circles, spreading outward from where two supreme beings prepared to clash.

  The Ancient One's hands moved through intricate patterns. Each gesture left trails of golden light in the air, mandalas forming and dissolving faster than thought. The movements were precise, economical and had no wasted motion. Centuries of practice made manifest.

  The Eye of Agamotto blazed open on her chest, revealing the Time Stone's sickly green glow. Time itself fractured around her fingers like shattered glass, creating afterimages that existed simultaneously across multiple moments. She was young and old, all states superimposed over each other. Looking at her directly made the mind ache with temporal paradox.

  "You will not interfere with my student, Devil." Her voice was flat, calm and absolutely certain that this was a line she would not allow to be crossed. "Take your summoner and leave. This is your only warning."

  Mephisto's grin widened, showing too many teeth. Each one perfect and white and slightly too sharp. His tongue, when it flicked out, was forked. "Oh, but I must, dear Sorcerer Supreme. Professional courtesy and all that. Can't let my newest pet lose out on revenge before I've properly branded her. Bad for business and even more terrible for reputation. The Lord of Hell has standards, you understand."

  His hands erupted with hellfire that was corruption made flame as the temperature spiked.

  All spells prepared, they clashed.

  The impact was apocalyptic.

  Green energy met red flame in a collision that created a shockwave visible to the naked eye. A sphere of pure force expanded outward, slamming into Jay like a physical wall and sending him stumbling backwards. It hit Selene and threw her to the ground. The obsidian platform cracked further, chunks of stone lifting into the air and hanging there, suspended by contradictory forces.

  Time manipulation collided with infernal power, and the dimension screamed in response.

  Mephisto's body split and multiplied. Each version of him slightly different. They attacked from angles from above and below and sideways and through.

  The Ancient One's hands moved faster. Mandalas formed shields, golden and intricate. Each one a spell unto itself, protection layered upon protection. Mephisto's flames struck the barriers and ate through them, consuming mystical frameworks like acid through paper. But new shields formed before the old ones failed, a constant cycle of destruction and creation happening faster than mortal eyes could track.

  "Chains of Cyttorak!" The Ancient One's voice cut through the chaos. Crimson bands materialized from nothing, wrapping around Mephisto's multiple forms. Trying to bind him, to hold him in one position long enough for a finishing blow.

  But Mephisto laughed. All his versions laughed simultaneously, creating harmonics that made the eardrums ache. "Oh, please. I've dealt with the Cyttorak himself before." His forms blurred, phased through the binding. "You'll have to do better than borrowed power, Sorcerer."

  "Very well." The Time Stone blazed brighter. "Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth, grant me sight beyond sight!"

  Her eyes turned pure white and glowing. She could see every possible future of this fight, every branch, every outcome. And in most of them, neither won. They were too evenly matched. But in a few, in the paths where she pushed herself beyond safe limits...

  She made her choice.

  Her hands wove new patterns, intricate and dangerous spells that had warning labels in mystical texts.

  "Mirror Dimension Inversion!" Space folded inside out. The pocket dimension, already unstable, screamed louder as its fundamental geometry rewrote itself. Up became down. Forward became backward. Distance became meaningless. Mephisto found himself attacking his own afterimages, his multiple forms colliding with each other in impossible angles.

  "Clever!" His voice carried genuine appreciation. Respect even. "But let's see how you handle this!"

  Hellfire erupted in patterns as sigils and runes older than human civilization. "I call upon the power of my domain! The flames that burned the first city! The corruption that ate the last saint!"

  Every surface ignited. The ground, the walls, the air itself burst into hellfire. The Ancient One's shields held, but barely. The flames ate at the edges, consuming mystical energy like fuel.

  But Jay couldn't watch their battle. He had his own prey to deal with.

  Selene stood before him, fully healed from Mephisto's flames. The wounds Jay had inflicted, the missing limbs, the blood loss, all of it erased. Mephisto's intervention had restored her completely. More than completely, as she looked younger and stronger. The summoning had given her renewed vitality, a surge of demonic power that made her eyes glow red in the dimensional darkness.

  Seeing the cause of her current predicament before her, all exhausted and wounded, she snarled.

  Her hands clawed at the ground. Her fingers, elegant despite everything, dug into the obsidian with strength that cracked stone. The ground responded to her will, liquefying beneath her touch like the whole dimension was an extension of her body. Stone flowed like blood, reshaping itself according to her desire.

  The remains of her petrified sorcerers, hundreds of them turned to dust and scattered across the platform, began to move.

  It started with small vibrations. Then the dust particles lifted, drawn by invisible force. They swirled through the air like a miniature tornado, gray and black and carrying the screams of the dead. Particles drew together, compressed under impossible pressure. The ashes knew what was being done to them. Knew they were being violated even in death.

  The dust hardened, became denser. A shaft formed first, ten feet long, straight and perfect. Then the head, wickedly sharp, edges that caught light wrong. Veins of crimson ran through the black stone, pulsing like arteries. Runes etched themselves into the surface, glowing with absorbed life force. Hundreds of years of stolen vitality given physical form. The weapon pulsed with power, each beat synchronized with Selene's heart.

  A lance. Made of condensed earth mixed with the ashes of her devoted followers. Their loyalty made weapon.

  She caught it mid-air as it fell into her grip. The weapon was wrong as it hummed with trapped souls.

  She rose on her legs, now steady. The fear replaced with fury. With rage that had been building since Jay first interfered with her plans.

  "You," she spat with venom. "You, you, YOU! Everything! Everything I've worked for! Everything I've built! It's all gone because of you!"

  The lance came up in a guard position. The stance of someone who'd held weapons since before humans invented metallurgy. Weight distributed precisely, muscles coiled, ready to explode into motion. Drawn from millennia of experience. From thousands of battles. From wars fought when Rome was young and Atlantis still floated.

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  Jay's grip tightened on the Muramasa blade. His long battle from the infernal demons to sorcerers to Jamie and Brian and finally to Mephisto had left him in terrible condition. Blood soaked his clothes, mixing with sweat and worse things. His stamina for Healing Aura had run dry hours ago. The well of power he drew from, empty. Every cut remained, every bruise darkened, and every torn muscle screamed. His ribs ached with every breath, and his arms felt like they were made of lead.

  But he picked up his blade anyway. Forced his body to respond despite its protests. Because he needed to finish this. Once and for all. Because stopping meant dying. And dying meant Domino was next. And that wasn't acceptable.

  Selene attacked.

  The lance thrust forward, a blur of motion his exhausted mind struggled to process.

  Jay barely got his blade up to parry. Muscle memory and Kamar-Taj training, moving his arms when his conscious mind was too slow. The Muramasa caught the lance shaft inches from his chest. Metal rang against compressed stone. The impact sent vibrations up his arms, through his shoulders, into his teeth and made them ache.

  His training kicked in automatically. Block, deflect and counter. The movements were muscle memory now, drilled into him through endless repetition under the Ancient One's watchful eye. His body knew what to do even when his mind was too tired to think.

  But Selene was faster. So much faster.

  The lance swept low in a horizontal arc. Going for his legs, trying to cripple him. Jay jumped, his exhausted muscles protesting, barely clearing the weapon. But the tip grazed his calf, the edge sharp enough to part flesh like tissue paper. Blood welled up immediately, hot and painful. The wound burned with more than physical damage. The lance was cursed, carrying the anguish of those who'd been made into it.

  He landed badly. Off-balance. Stumbling. His wounded leg barely taking his weight. He slashed at her torso, the Muramasa cutting through air with a sound like tearing fabric. But she twisted, pivoting with inhuman grace. Her body moved like water, impossibly flexible. The blade passed through empty space where she'd been a microsecond before.

  The lance's butt slammed into his ribs.

  Right where they'd cracked earlier. The impact was precise.

  Something snapped.

  Pain exploded through his chest, all-consuming and white-hot. His vision whited out for a second. His breath caught, unable to inhale fully. He stumbled forward, gasping, tasting copper from blood in his mouth. Had the broken rib punctured something? Lung? Organ?

  And Selene pressed the advantage.

  She moved like a serpent. The lance became a blur of motion, striking from impossible angles. Feints within feints within feints. Every attack designed to force a response. Every response leaving him open for the next strike. The kind of combat that came from fighting for seventeen thousand years. From perfecting technique across millennia. From having more experience than any mortal should possess.

  "All I wanted was the Braddock bloodline!" Her voice was shrill. The composed External was replaced by someone desperate. "A simple acquisition! Three powerful mutants and magi with Otherworld blood! to add to my collection! Perfect servants! Perfect tools! Perfect children to rebuild my empire! But you had to poke your nose in!"

  The lance came down in an overhead strike. Jay rolled aside, the weapon hitting where his head had been with enough force to crater the stone. Fragments exploded outward. One caught his cheek, drawing blood. "Not only did you take away my new enforcers, but you slaughtered hundreds of my followers! Followers whose families had served me for generations! Bloodlines going back centuries! All of them dust! All of them gone!"

  Jay's blade came up, catching her next strike. The impact nearly tore the weapon from his grip. The anti-magic properties of the Muramasa kept her mystical attacks at bay, negated the curses she tried to weave into each strike. But she'd adapted and was

  "And now, because of YOU!" She thrust, and Jay parried. The lance scraped against his blade with a shriek of metal on stone. "I had to summon HIM! Do you understand?! I had to call upon the Devil himself!" Another strike. Jay blocked, but barely. His arms shaking from the impact. "Do you even know what that means?! What I've condemned myself to?!"

  The hellfire collar around her neck pulsed with each word. It tightened as the flames ate at her skin without consuming it. It was proof of an eternal brand. A leash that could never be removed. She gasped mid-sentence, her voice strangling, but fury drove her forward. Made her ignore the pain because rage was all she had left.

  "I'll be a plaything of the King of Hell! Forced to do whatever he pleases! For seventeen thousand years minimum! As long as I've been alive! And that's if I'm lucky! If he's feeling generous! If he doesn't decide eternity would be more entertaining!"

  Her assault intensified.

  Jay's body couldn't keep up.

  The lance found openings. Exploited weaknesses and punished every mistake.

  A thrust that slipped past his guard. The tip caught his shoulder, carving deep. Muscle parted, and blood sprayed. His left arm went partially numb, fingers losing their grip on the sword hilt for a moment before he forced them to close again.

  A sweep that he dodged too slowly. The blade edge gouged his thigh, cutting to the bone. It scraped against femur with a grinding sensation that made his stomach lurch. His leg buckled as blood ran down in a hot stream, pooling in his boot, making his footing slippery.

  A spin attack he didn't see coming. The lance carved through his side, barely missing organs but leaving a wound that gaped. He pressed his hand against it instinctively, trying to hold himself together literally.

  She was winning. And she knew it.

  Her eyes showed her confidence returning.

  "Me!" she screamed. Her voice broken with all pretense of dignity gone. "The Black Queen! An External who has outlived empires! Reduced to a SLAVE! A PET! A TOY for a demon to use and discard whenever he grows bored!"

  But through the pain, through the exhaustion, through the blood loss making his vision swim, Jay kept his head cool.

  He had to. So, he shoved it all down. Made himself analyze.

  He studied her patterns and memorized her tells. The slight shift of weight before a thrust, loading power into her back leg. The tensing of shoulder muscles before a sweep, telegraphing the direction a microsecond early. The way her eyes tracked where she'd strike next, old habits from millennia of combat that she couldn't quite suppress.

  He was looking for an opening. Just one moment of overextension.

  Time passed. Minutes? Hours? Impossible to tell. The dimensional instability and the Ancient One's time manipulation made duration meaningless. Each second stretched like taffy, subjective experience warping under cosmic forces.

  His body screamed for rest. For healing and mercy.

  Finally, mid-rant, Selene overextended.

  "You think you're special?!" The lance came down in a vertical slash. All her rage compressed into one blow designed to split him in half from crown to groin. "You think your stolen powers make you WORTHY?! You're nothing! Just another insect pretending to be a god! Another mortal playing with forces you don't understand!"

  There.

  Her weight shifted too far forward. Committed fully to the overhead strike. Her legs locked to support the power. Her torso exposed for a fraction of a second.

  Jay saw his moment and took it.

  He dropped his guard. The Muramasa lowered, leaving his body completely exposed.

  The lance's edge came down. Grazed his cheek on the left side as it cut deep, from temple to jaw. Blood flowed hot and immediate. Missing his eye by millimeters. Missing his throat by inches.

  But it missed.

  And Jay surged forward.

  His left hand shot out. Kim Il Sung's function manipulation flooding through his palm with desperate intensity. Every ounce of power he had left. Holding nothing back because there was nothing left to hold back.

  The effect was immediate.

  The mystical frameworks holding the lance together, ancient earth magic woven by Selene herself, suddenly forgot how to bind. The weapon's structure destabilized at the quantum level.

  The lance shattered, and fragments flew in every direction, spinning through air like shrapnel. Some pieces were dust. Others were chunks the size of fists. All of them moving at lethal velocities.

  Several caught Selene in the face. One carved a line across her cheek. Another embedded itself in her forehead. A third took part of her ear. Blood flowed, black and thick and ancient. She screamed, hands going to her face instinctively.

  And in that moment of surprise, that instant of vulnerability, Jay drove the Muramasa blade into her abdomen.

  The sword sank deep. Through mystical barriers that had protected her. Through ancient flesh that had survived the fall of Atlantis. Through muscle and organ, and spine. The anti-magic properties negated her defenses completely. Made her immortality meaningless. Made her just flesh that could be cut.

  The blade emerged from her back. Black-stained.

  Selene's eyes went wide.

  Pupils dilating as understanding flooded through her. The knowledge that she was dying. Really dying. That seventeen thousand years were about to end right here, right now, at the hands of someone who'd only been alive for a fraction of her existence.

  Her mouth opened. Words forming, a curse in Sanskrit so ancient it predated written language. Something that would transcend her death, reaching across the veil to drag him down with her. Her final spite made manifest.

  But the anti-magic blade was inside her. Lodged in her core.

  The words died as magic refused to form. The curse unraveled before completion. Mystical circuits that had functioned for millennia fired wrong, sparked like damaged electronics, failed completely. The syllables came out as meaningless sounds.

  Before she could try again, before she could summon strength for one more spell, Jay's right hand clamped over her mouth.

  His palm sealed against her lips. Fingers dug into her cheeks. He felt her trying to speak against his hand, her tongue moving desperately, her teeth scraping his skin.

  "You talk too much for an old hag."