Riddled
"I don't know how he revived himself, and I don't care," Ythmun said contemptibly, gazing at the cloud of dust in disgust. "I'll kill him as many times as it takes for betraying me."
At that moment, the dust cloud imploded, colliding and compressing into the vague shape of a body. It glowed, yanking a thick tendril of Divine Energy out of Ythmun and infusing itself with it as it morphed.
The dust changed colors, some parts pale and other parts dark as it flowed and shifted, forming hands, a suit, white hair, and silver eyes as Garrett himself was born from the cloud of dust. The whole process took less than a second. Fate quite literally blinked and the man was standing before them, alive once more.
Garrett returned Ythmun's wrathful stare with one of grim determination.
"You care not for your people," he told the emperor. "You don't care about me, or those villagers back there that you killed without a second thought, or even this planet. All you care about is power, what the Advanced promised you. I didn't betray you, Ythmun. You betrayed us."
"Foolish words from a dead man," Ythmun retorted dismissively, breathing deeply as a thick line of green Divine Energy connected the two, pulsing occasionally.
As Fate observed, Garrett grew paler and paler as Ythmun's cheeks grew rosy and his eyes glazed over with glee. Fate stepped in, pulling out his Miao Dao and pumping it full of Divine Energy as he severed the connection with one stroke.
Ythmun shuddered when Fate did so, losing his rosiness and turning green. His eyes lost their misty appearance as he turned his rage-filled eyes to Fate.
"Insolent cur," he said. "Harming me is punishable by death."
"That hurt? Good to know." Fate readied his sword, holding it in front of him as he crouched, ready to move at a moment's notice. "Let's see if doing it again takes care of my little king problem."
"I'm an emperor, you obstinate fool!" Ythmun waved his hand in a wide arc, jumping off of his boulder as it hurtled toward Fate. It passed through Fate like he wasn't there, and he calmly walked forward toward Ythmun.
The emperor matched his pace, and the two met in the middle with a clash. Ythmun caught Fate's sword in his hand, gripping it mightily and frowning when it didn't break. The black edge pulsed as it tried and failed to cut through him.
When the emperor noticed the steady draining of his Divine Energy, he threw the sword aside in disgust, earning a punch to the throat for his troubles.
He snatched Fate's hand by the wrist, twisting it to the side and snapping the tendons. Fate didn't flinch, bringing his sword around to sweep the man's legs. It bounced off Ythmun's calf, upon which the monarch let out a cold chuckle.
"I'm untouchable," he smirked. "The most powerful man on this planet. Your only option is to die beneath my might." He threw a punch, and the fist connected with Fate's face despite the latter's Manifest Power.
Fate's head rocked back, his ears ringing. Throwing caution to the wind, he retaliated with a vicious headbutt, slamming his forehead into the cartilage of Ythmun's nose. Ythmun staggered back, releasing his grip on Fate's wrist as he put a hand on his nose to staunch the bleeding.
"You bastarb!" the man said behind his hand. A tug at the surroundings left the grass around him dead, and he wiped his nose of the blood with his sleeve. The appendage looked right as rain. "You'll pay for that," he snarled.
"I don't think so," Fate replied, twirling his sword in an arc. "I found out your secret. Sure, your high Level makes you immune to our Manifestations, but everything else…"
He straightened his sword, pointing the tip at his opponent. The blade was noticeably normal once more, the edge no longer coated by Fate's Divine Energy. "I get the feeling this sword will work just fine when I use it without my Manifestation."
Ythmun grinned, clasping his hands behind his back. "I don't know how you plan to use it." With a flick of his eyes, he ripped Fate's sword out of his hand and launched it several hundred feet away.
Fate shrugged, shifting into a boxer stance as he bounced from leg to leg. Ythmun laughed. "So confident that I'll engage in melee with you. So eager. But answer me this: why would I do that when I can crush you three just fine, and not have to lift a single finger to do it? Honor is for the weak, which I am not."
His aura pulsed, a wall of Divine Energy smacking into Fate from above and flattening him to the ground. Only his preemptive incorporeality shift and last-second telekinetic barrier saved him from becoming a red smear. He struggled, trying and failing to fight the man's ludicrously strong Divine Reach.
A connection formed between the two, stronger than the one Ythmun had used earlier, and Fate felt that vital something being leeched away from him. He used his Manifestation-infused aura to fight back, but it sapped away at him faster than he could take the energy and use it to heal himself. He was dying, slowly.
"Forgetting something?" Cait yelled, pulling the miniature laser pistol out of her boot and shooting straight at Ythmun's head.
A red line formed in the air for a split second, a thin hole about as wide around as a pencil going through Ythmun's eye and out of the back. He glanced at her, his scorched eye bubbling before returning to pristine condition again, along with the exit wound. He examined the woman for a moment before turning his attention back to Fate, tossing a telekinetic shove Cait's way.
She quelled it and pulled her laser pistol's trigger as fast as she could, sending line after line through the air and riddling Ythmun's head with holes.