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--donation bonus (day #29, post 1/5)--
Fire engulfed Hanjir, along with a shock wave that knocked him and his still-connected reaper higher into the air. Roman flew up after them, giving the opponent no chance to regain his balance, and juggling him even higher with each successive blast of soul-empowered vibrations. The flames continued burning all the while, fighting with Hanjir’s rapid regeneration, but ultimately doing more damage to the reaper, who then chose to abandon Hanjir and fly away. And once Roman had achieved great enough height, he let the Abolisher drop again.

Hanjir was in freefall for only a few seconds, but that was plenty of time to reach terminal velocity. As he grew close to the ground, he shot it with his power, which made a crater and was perhaps the only thing the man could think to do in the last moments of panic. His body splattered on impact, bones shattering, organs liquefying.

Roman was already busy chasing the reaper down.

‘No!’ The soul-empowered fire had taken its toll, leaving the black crow smoldering, ethereal feathers in tatters. ‘You fuckers! How dare you!’ The reaper tried to flee underground.

Roman did not allow it. He caught the bird with a pressurized, soul-empowered cage. And crushed it.

The reaper’s body evaporated and vanished entirely.

‘Fucking idiot,’ said Voreese. ‘Good riddance.’

He flew back to Hanjir’s crater to set the dead body ablaze and crush the head with a focused shock wave. “That’s one down,” he said as he landed again.

‘Check on the soldiers real quick,’ said Voreese.

He made his way over to the plane. Only a few of the men had left the cabin, the rest watching from window seats. The first soldier he approached shied away from him, but the second stood his ground.

“Are you guys okay?” Roman asked.

For a moment, the uniformed man merely returned a hard look. He was black and quite young. “You... saved us?”

Roman decided not to smile, figuring it might come across as more insane than comforting, especially after all these men had been through. “Yeah.”