On New Year’s Day, Hilo and Anden drive to the Twice Lucky in the Docks, where Gont Asch and Mountain Green Bones are waiting. Hilo has brought Anden as the witness to a bargain: if Gont honors the terms, Anden will return Hilo’s body and report that No Peak should surrender; if Gont breaks the deal, No Peak will fight to ruin the Mountain’s victory.

Hilo demands that Gont personally finish him so his death has the dignity of a warrior’s end. Instead of submitting passively, Hilo goads the Mountain fighters into attacking him. Anden watches as Hilo kills several skilled Green Bones with his talon knife and jade abilities, forcing Gont to intervene before more of his men die.

When Gont moves in to grant Hilo the promised death, Hilo tackles him, revealing that he never intended to offer his neck meekly. Gont beats Hilo down brutally, and when Hilo finally appears broken, Hilo cries out for Anden. This is the signal for the real plan: Hilo has hidden nearly all of his jade on a cord inside his sleeve so Anden can rip it free at the decisive moment.

Anden seizes Hilo’s hidden jade and is overwhelmed by a massive rush of power. Because the Mountain fighters have dismissed Anden as an unarmed student with no jade aura, he catches Gont by surprise and begins Channeling into him. Gont’s legendary Steel nearly holds, but Hilo uses the last of his strength to stab Gont with the Horn’s own talon knife, opening a weakness in Gont’s defense.

Anden drives his power through that opening and kills Gont, experiencing the Horn’s death through his heightened Perception. The blowback of jade energy sends Anden into a terrifying, ecstatic frenzy, and Anden kills two more Mountain fighters and hurls others away with a Deflection. The remaining Mountain men flee, but Anden, horrified and overloaded, drops the jade and collapses unconscious beside the gravely wounded Hilo.