He didn't have time to react.
The moment Koyote so much as blinked, Arthur raised a single finger—and the world itself seemed to stop.
Then came the hellfire.
Not flames. Not magic. Something worse. It was like the concept of burning was redefined right there—fire that licked his skin, soul, and memories. A heat that didn't melt—it peeled. Flesh turned to red mist. Bones screamed. His nerves frayed like snapped violin strings, playing a symphony of agony.
He collapsed.
His insides twisted like serpents. Every heartbeat came with a new explosion of pain—like his blood was lava and his lungs were filled with barbed wire.
He wanted to scream, but his throat had melted.
And then—somewhere in that abyss of torment—his dumbass brain did what it always did best: make it worse.
"Nurse..." he gasped, voice like shattered glass. "I dream... of a Nurse."
The world shimmered. Tier 1 Healing Powers activated.
A soft glow bathed his ruined body. Skin began to stitch. Organs sloshed back into place. Eyes reformed like film being rewound. He breathed again.
Then Arthur flicked his wrist, and the fire came again.
And again.
And again.
Every time he crawled back from the brink, screaming, trembling, calling on the dream of healing. It was a cycle of birth and death on loop. An inferno of evolution.
Burn. Heal. Burn. Heal.
By the fifth round, he was grinning through the blood.
"I... might be into this," he muttered deliriously.
Then, like a whisper lost in thunder, Koyote said a single word.
"i dream of a Domain."
Everything cracked.
Arthur's expression twitched. The entire battlefield shattered like porcelain—replaced by a white void that stretched into infinity.
They stood face to face, suspended in emptiness.
Koyote raised a hand, and without warning, projectiles rained down—rockets, missiles, spiked balls of who-knows-what. A barrage of chaos forged from pure desperation.
Arthur moved not an inch.
He merely raised a brow, the moment Koyote's attacks neared him—they disintegrated, flames chewing them mid-air, vanishing like bad dreams.
But Koyote didn't stop.
Every punch he threw came with a new power. Every dodge laced with a different element. From illusions to explosions, his abilities bent and swirled like a storm of raw madness.
Arthur, unfazed, parried with a flick, dodged with a blink.
But even he paused, mid-stride, watching as Koyote's energy surged.
"This power... I am not Tier 1 anymore."
Koyote blinked, confused. The pain clouded his senses.
He hadn't realized it. Since Gandalf's death... he'd been a Tier 2.
Arthur gave him a look—not of concern—but of mild curiosity, like someone watching a lizard learn how to ride a unicycle.
Then he raised a hand and—snap.
Everything burned. The entire white world caught flame, Koyote's dreamspace crumbling like wet paper.
Coyote dropped to his knees. Bruised, bleeding, half-conscious.
Arthur strode toward him, slow and theatrical, cloak billowing despite the lack of wind.
"You interest me," Arthur said. "You're unstable. Erratic. But resourceful." He extended a hand. "Join the Hollowcast."
Coyote coughed blood... then laughed. A wild, cracked laugh.
He smirked.
"On your dreams, motherfucker."
Then, with the last flicker of strength in his battered body, he whispered:
"I dream... to be teleported... back to where I was this morning."
A flash of white.
A rupture in space.
Arthur reached forward—and grabbed nothing.
Koyote was gone.
Silence lingered in the blank void.
Then Arthur chuckled—slowly, deeply.
"Hah... So that's how it is."
A grin stretched across his face.
"You'll make this... fun."
---