The doomsday clock struck one.

"Once played, Apocalypse: The Ends Come For You cannot be removed from the field in any way," Hastur said. "It reduces the cost of Apocalypse Miracles by one per apocalypse counter in play, and shall crown us with victory once we accumulate thirteen."

Wepwawet grit his teeth and glanced at Sun Wukong, who remained silent and tense. Would he trigger his trap now? Or wait for a more opportune moment?

"We follow this by casting the Apocalypse: The Flesh Feast Ritual at a reduced cost," Hastur said. "It poisons all units on the field and grants me another apocalypse counter."

A diseased, corrupted wind passed over the city of Carcosa, befouling its air. Thankfully, they had planned for this Miracle to be played and gave all their Champions healing items and countermeasures beforehand; when they were not outright immune to the ailment like Slimon. The likes of Victoire and Viviane immediately reached for their antidote bottles the moment they sensed the vile poison taking hold. More worrying was the fact that a second, floating skull counter appeared right next to the first, causing Hastur's doomsday clock to advance to two.

Unfortunately, this was only the start of their troubles.

"You may have prepared your mortals well, but we shall see if they can survive this one." Hastur cast another Ritual, among the most dangerous of his deadly Apocalypse series. "Apocalypse: The Scoured Desolation."

Wepwawet winced, as did his allies. That was the Miracle his Fire & Ice Doctrine was meant to counter, and it would only soften the blow even then. His allies' Champions had no such meager protection.

This would hurt.

"All creatures on the field," Hastur said, "take heavy fire damage."

Filou felt sick.

A terrible miasma carried by the wind had struck them all mere seconds after Lord Wepwawet warned them of the incoming attack. Every member of the group—except for Slimon, whose ooze nature shielded him from the tainted air—had immediately reached for the antidotes right as the poison entered their lungs and flesh. A sudden rush of sickness had taken over their flesh and bones, draining them of their strength and vitality.

The antidote pouring down his throat barely soothed the pain. Alpine had crafted it from the toxins within Whiro's marshes and insisted that it could cure any kind of poison, and while Filou believed her, part of the damage was already done. He would need another healing potion to recover his lost strength.

"Here," Viviane said upon tossing him one. She had weathered the poison better than Filou, probably because she already had experience braving Whiro's marsh during the previous Incursion. "I still have a handful."

"Thank you," Filou replied with gratitude as he drank. A rush of alchemical relief immediately coursed through his body. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright, though we might need to call Mistouffe for a resupply." Viviane then turned to Slimon, who was busy pressing his slimy, corrosive body against a stone building's wall. "Still not done yet?"

"I would like to see you try in my place, you hominid!" Slimon complained. According to Lord Wepwawet's telepathic directions, melting away this wall would let them use a shortcut towards their quarry and avoid a very long maze of spiraling crossroads and dead ends. "I told you we should have brought bombs ourselves instead of leaving them with that cat!"

"Lord Wepwawet said it might backfire on us if we carried any, and…" Viviane froze in place, her head looking north. "Do you feel that?"

Filou did. The air was growing warmer by the second, as waves of heat rushed down from the north. He looked up to see light shining through the unnatural darkness ruling Carcosa, the cowled black abyss that was the Titan Hastur's face looking down on them with vile malice. He waved his hand and caused the light to rise in great columns of fire and filled the sky with a burning glow.

Filou's eyes widened in horror when he saw the immense smokeless flames surging across the horizon. It reminded him of the occasional firestorms that could strike Verglane's forests in summer, but this one reached higher than the immense spires towering across Carcosa's landscape.

A colossal wall of fire was coming right for them!

"Down!" Filou shouted as he, Viviane, and Slimon ducked beneath the half-melted wall. "Down!"

They barely had time to take refuge when fire swallowed them all.

Wepwawet winced as he felt his Champions' pain through their bond.

His Fire & Ice Doctrine provided them with resistance to fire, enough to let them thrive in Lavaland's weather, but resistance wasn't immunity. It simply weakened what would have been the equivalent of a fireball explosion to the face into a dive into a bath of embers.

Soumis, being a fire dragon, basically flew through the flames like a carp swam through mere water, with Victoire's various magical items letting her weather the experience with little more than a grunt of pain. Many of Sagesse's feathers caught fire, and for a second, she briefly resembled a phoenix in the sky; she swirled on herself to expel her flaming plumage like how a snake sheds its skin. Viviane's group somewhat managed to take cover before impact, but although he sensed that none of them were dying from the attack, they were now trapped among burning buildings.

Wepwawet's allies fared quite differently. While Sun Wukong's Champions had endured the flames through resilience or strength of will alone—the Miracle had somehow failed to shake his Naga Commander out of his deep meditative trance, even when it charred his scales, and the ogres were immune to fire—Wepwawet couldn't say the same for Epona. Her summoned twinbow centaur had been incinerated alongside the golden pegasus knight, while the other two suffered from heavy burns, their mounts screeching from searing wounds on their flesh. Only her Commander Ravness was completely unharmed.

"I activate Valkyrie's Denial to revive my Champion Claude!" Epona said immediately. Her Prophecy immediately caused her dead pegasus rider to reappear on the spot where he died, alongside his mount. "His Rider Bond II Perk shares all effects targeting him with his pegasus, allowing me to revive it as well."

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"Your Commander took no damage, yet your summoned creature perished…" Hastur pointed at Ravness. "We would wager that her Perk allows her allies to shoulder wounds in her stead."

Epona grit her teeth rather than answer. Unfortunately, Hastur had indeed guessed correctly. That ability was part of why Epona had selected Ravness for her Commander in this battle, besides her speed.

"No matter," Hastur decided as the doomsday clock advanced to three. "We play a Rank 9 Prophecy and end our turn. The effect of our Ex Nihilo Doctrine will now activate–"

"No, it won't," Sun Wukong said as he sprang his trap. "I pay an extra 6 mana to trigger my set Rank 6 Prophecy, Incoherent Tenet! It causes all Doctrines on the field to return to their players' hands!"

For the first time in the entire duel, Hastur was in utter shock. "What?!"

Wepwawet watched on with delight as Statement Ends, Ex Nihilo, and Extinction Notice returned to Hastur's hand. So did his own Fire & Ice, but it had served its purpose. Sun Wukong was doing Wepwawet a favor by sparing him the maintenance cost.

"Extinction Notice might protect your Apocalypse Miracles, but it cannot protect itself," Sun Wukong boasted. "And since Ex Nihilo bounced back to your hand before its effect could resolve–"

"You don't get to draw extra cards this turn," Wepwawet taunted Hastur.

"But how?! This wasn't the Prophecy you cast during your turn, unless–" Hastur's hood perked up. "Your Providence?"

"That's right, Halloween boy!" Sun Wukong laughed heartily. "My Earthly Transformations Providence lets me temporarily transform any Champion, Artifact, or Miracle within my Influence into something similar of the same Rank, so long as I possess a copy and pay the mana cost. In short, if I have a Rank 5 Champion, I can transform him into a copy of another Rank 5 Champion I possess."

The implications quickly dawned on Hastur. "By paying an extra 6 mana, you transformed your set Prophecy into a copy of Incoherent Tenet, which is still in your deck."

"And you know what that means, peep? It means the Rank 7 Prophecy I set earlier won't do what you think it will! Plus, you'll have to pay back the full price of your Doctrines if you want to cast them again."

"You have eighteen mana left by my calculations," Epona noted. "Even with a full mana surge, you won't have enough reserves to cast all your Doctrines with your Panopticon's maintenance cost in play. You will have to choose."

Hastur's grip on his cards strengthened tenfold, and he began to obsessively check his hand even as Wepwawet took his turn. The Titan was likely trying to calculate all possible outcomes or ways to salvage the situation. Wepwawet had to admit that it was a genius move from Sun Wukong. His stratagem did more than disrupt the King in Yellow's strategy. It had rattled him, thrown him off his game.

A pity tournament rules allowed players to check cards or demand explanations for effects after they went off, or else Sun Wukong would have likely played more mind games with Hastur.

We've got to keep up the pressure, Wepwawet thought as his turn began with a surge of six mana. As expected, he drew the Mask of Alec Hastur had placed on top of his deck. He quickly checked the stats to confirm if it had any use as an actual item before realizing that no, it had no such additional purpose. I can pay one mana and show it to draw another card, which will then pass it on to Epona, who has an empty hand; and the cycle will repeat until Hastur gets it back with added potency, unless…

Wepwawet glanced at Sun Wukong, who answered with a smug grin. Of course, that crafty monkey could get rid of it with his Providence!

But first of all, he had to help his Champions. While Victoire and Sagesse continued to fly safely above the flames, Filou's group was trapped in a burning street. The flames should die on their own in a few minutes due to Carcosa being almost all stone, but he had to ensure they survived until then.

Let's hope Hastur's Prophecy isn't a counter of some kind, Wepwawet thought as he used his Miracle. "I cast the Rank 5 Ice Barrier Ritual on Filou."

Ice Barrier was thankfully highly modulable and could be used to restrain targets without harming them, so he summoned as little ice as he could around Filou. Most of it melted immediately when it came in contact with the flames and doused the fire with water.

Since Hastur did not counter this play, Wepwawet assumed that the coast was clear.

"Next, I reveal the Mask of Alec in my hand, paying one mana to draw another card and place it on top of the next player's deck!" Wepwawet said, the cursed Miracle teleporting atop Epona's deck. Much to his pleasure, the next card he drew was Castle Neigebleue. "Finally, I play the Rank 11 Castle Neigebleue Animism–"

"We will not allow you," Hastur replied. "We activate our Rank 9 Prophecy, The Yellow Sign."

A strange, golden sigil appeared over Wepwawet's Castle Neigebleue card and plucked it from his hand. It didn't even reach the discard pile.

"Are you kidding me?!" Wepwawet complained. Hastur's playstyle didn't feel as brutal or oppressive as Whiro's, but it was a thousand times more frustrating!

"The Yellow Sign negates the activation of your Miracle and removes it from the game, though in return the mana cost is refunded to you," Hastur explained. "Moreover, by removing Yellow Sign from the game, we are allowed to place another copy of it on the board from our hand or deck without paying its mana cost."

Another Prophecy appeared on Hastur's side of the board; yet another silent threat.

"You can have three copies of a non-unique card in your deck, so he must have a third Yellow Sign in reserve," Epona theorized. "He can defend himself and slim down his deck to increase his chances of drawing an Apocalypse Miracle. That's not good."

"He's bound to run out of counters," Sun Wukong replied. "Let's keep boiling the frog."

Wepwawet cursed as he checked his hand. Fire & Ice was mostly useless unless Hastur had another fire-themed Miracle in his deck, since Carcosa's flames were dying out on their end, and Animal Kingdom had no use at all. Hastur had successfully neutralized or forced him to discard all of his best Miracles. The only thing he could do for now was to summon Champion reinforcements. Should he do so, even knowing Hastur retained quite a few dangerous Miracles in his deck?

Wait a second. Why didn't Hastur negate my Ice Barrier? That part confused Wepwawet. He could have decided to keep his Yellow Sign in reserve to counter more powerful Miracles, but it would have been a golden opportunity to weaken or slay a group of Champions hunting down one of his Commanders. Something fishy's going on there.

Wepwawet once again used his Providence to triangulate the location of Hastur's Commanders. While Magnos, the Apocalypse Prophet, had been moved far away from Victoire's vicinity and Epona's Champions continued to hound the Ghost Queen Cassilda, the Pallid Mask was close to Filou's group…

And closing in.

Realizing the danger, Wepwawet immediately summoned reinforcements, with some newly revived muscle. "I spend four mana to summon Mistouffe, Intrepid Cat, and five mana to summon Grudu, Prehistoric Behemoth, to the board!"

He hoped those two could make it in time.

Going from extreme heat to extreme cold was an unpleasant experience.

"Is everyone alright?" Filou asked his allies after pushing an icy brick off him. The deflagration, followed by Lord Wepwawet's ice barrier, had leveled almost all the buildings around them. They stood among wreckage, shattered walls, and steaming puddles.

"I'm good," Viviane replied upon throwing away her half-burned cloak. "Slimon?"

"Thank Lord Wepwawet we didn't bring any bombs…" the slime muttered to himself in disbelief at narrowly avoiding a disaster. "Thank the Lord's wisdom… I will never doubt you again…"

Filou allowed a smile of relief, though it quickly faded away. His ears picked up an awful noise nearby; a nauseating sound akin to a viscous mollusk crawling on the ground.

"I hear something approaching," Filou warned his allies, his hands gripping his scimitar.

"Yes," Viviane confirmed upon readying her bow. "It's here."

"The enemy is coming to intercept you," Lord Wepwawet warned them through telepathy. "Hold your ground. Reinforcements are on their way."

The group gathered tightly, backs pressed against each other, their eyes looking out in every direction; yet they were only facing smoke and ruins. The crawling noise grew closer anyway, like a squid squeezing through pipes. Filou focused on the sound until he finally identified its source.

It came from below.

"Sewers!" Filou shouted a warning. "It's using the sewer–"

A screaming tentacle burst out of the ground.

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