120, 1/2, End of Book 4 (Patreon)

Erick hovered in the middle of the sky, seeming like an imitation of a sun, surrounded by light and made of light himself. Nine Ophiel hovered around him, some in replicas of Erick’s own sunform, others running other spells, like [Hunter’s Instincts], or one of the Sight spells Erick had recently unlocked and bought. He was as prepared as he could have been, and yet, he wondered at what else he could have done. Tried to make [True Sight]? That would have been useful. What did he need to get that one? Maybe he could have had each of his Ophiel grab a rock, and then each of them could put a weak [Prismatic Ward] on them, and then each Ophiel could each run [Pure Reflection Ward] in their sunforms, while keeping the [Prismatic Ward] at their center so they could remain high-mana.

Ah. He should have done that.

He also only had nine Ophiel around him. The last one had been watching Hollowsaur, but it was time for him to come back.

Erick had that one grab some supplies on the way, and then light step it back here as fast as he could. Shit was about to hit the fan. And yet… Erick just wanted to enjoy the view for at least a moment.

The Dead City really was quite beautiful from this angle. Erick and his Ophiel were a good 15 kilometers up, above Ar’Kendrithyst. They could see the entirety of this once-great wrought city. From horizon to horizon, where the black solid-lace Feast Barrier cut them off from the rest of the world, the crystal city glowed with radiant reds and puissant purples, almost looking like some modern city, while the space below was an arena of light, with depths far too deep to see, and sides a good 50 kilometers from edge to edge.

And then there was the Edge of the Script, up above. The barrier that held the mana of the Old Cosmology to Veird, that enabled Veird to function as a planet, hovered a scant several kilometers higher. Maybe less.

Lapis was already up there, hoping for the start of a new life. Farix had joined her, and surrounded himself with blood magic of the highest order; dark red orbs, just waiting for a target. Goldie was somewhere in that dark sky, too, but none of Erick’s various Sights revealed her location. But none of that mattered, for a part of the fight had already started.

Right in front of Erick.

Fallopolis One looked much the same as Fallopolis Two. Both of them wore tattered black dresses; the same one from the last time Erick had seen the woman. Both had a broken kendrithyst staff in their hands. Both had frazzled, burned hair, and burned flesh.

Fallopolis stared at Fallopolis, as the crystal city in the distance exploded with varicolored lights and fires, hinting at fights far out of sight.

“This bitch!” Fallopolis One yelled, “I knew we shoulda killed you first! What the fuck you doing with my face!”

Fallopolis two almost responded, but—

Erick threw a pair of [Luminous Traps] at both of them, catching both of them in the effect. Fallopolis One and Fallopolis Two swirled into utter darkness. Erick dismissed the spells right afterward.

Fallopolis Two tumbled out of the broken black void with a disjointed, “ARGglee gabble! Fuck! That HURTS!” And then she laughed, for she saw who had tumbled out of the first [Luminous Trap]. “AH HA! Fuck you, Perri!”

The grey orcol woman tumbled out of the first trap. Barely a moment later, a splash of shadows, the triggered [Dispel] that the Witch had used before to escape Erick’s [Luminous Trap], struck the Witch’s back. It did nothing.

And then she vanished into another [Luminous Trap], cast from a second Ophiel. The very second she fell back into the void, another Ophiel threw all of himself into counterspelling Blood Ooze which he then flung into the black void, while a third Ophiel, currently in sunform and running [Pure Reflection Ward], surrounded Perri’s new prison. Some of that Ophiel slipped into the black void it protected, but another Ophiel cast a [Perfect Mirror] on the black void, turning the lightless sphere into the world’s shiniest, 4-meter wide ball bearing. The reflective Ophiel settled down around the mirrored space, perfectly molding himself to the surface. Erick was barely fast enough. Three more dark splashes of [Dispel] magic struck that Ophiel’s reflective coating, soaking in, but accomplishing nothing. The blood ooze poked out from the bottom of the silver sphere, but otherwise remained inside, trapping the Witch under a great many various spells.

Erick was down to 8 Ophiel, so he summoned another, bringing him back up to 9, just in time for the tenth Ophiel to step into the space, carrying some rocks for Erick’s [Prismatic Ward] plan. He had his currently unoccupied Ophiel give out the stones to the rest, as they began enacting his will, all on their own.

Fallopolis had barely yelled her dislike of Perri by the time Erick had solved the problem. She had been about to tell Erick to do something; he could see it in her wide eyes. But now she just kinda stood there, in the air, growing more gleeful with every passing second. She laughed, then asked, “What was that red thing I saw?”

“Counterspelling ooze.”

Fallopolis gasped, then cut her gasp off. “Ah. She’s probably already out of that. Good spell, but I doubt it works well against her. I’m going to kill her now.”

A black beam ripped out of Fallopolis’s chest, to impact the reflective Ophiel surrounding Perri’s prison like a protective shell of glowing water. That part of Ophiel scattered like so much radiant rain, though the rest of him remained attached to the ball bearing. Erick almost said something —he wasn’t really sure what he was going to say, either— but Fallopolis had acted too fast, and now he just wanted to see if she could actually get through his spells. He had little hope for his [Familiar] holding up against Fallopolis, since Ophiel wasn’t exactly a real boy; not yet anyway. He had less hopes for the [Perfect Mirror].

But then the [Perfect Mirror] proved better than the [Familiar]. Fallopolis’s black beam scattered wide. She frowned. She kept her beam going for a good five seconds, before she stopped, in a huff.

All this while, Erick had been watching Fallopolis, from every angle, and with every sense he had going.

She was the real one.

Erick said to her, “Let me, Fallopolis.”

With a thought, Erick had the sunform Ophiel surrounding Perri’s prison turn real again, and stick a feathered wing through the edge of the silver sphere, and into the black void beneath. From that wingtip Erick cast a spell of pure light that bounced around inside that protected space, becoming a laser without beginning or end as it crashed through the trapped Shade.

Erick didn’t see it as it happened, for all the power of [Luminous Beam] was trapped as solidly as Perri, but he got the notification of the kill.

--

Special Quest Complete!

Perri, True Shade of Melemizargo, has been killed!

100% participation, FULL EXPERIENCE

+ 1,220,016,041,512,190,000,000 exp

--

That certainly was a lot of experience. Erick glanced at his Status.

“Huh.” Erick said, “I’m level 90, now. Shit. She was pretty big, wasn’t she?”

“Fuck your illusions, bitch!” Fallopolis cackled at the space where Perri had been, adding, “With her dead, this’ll make killing the rest of them so much easier!” She smirked, adding, “You know, if we don’t die in the process!”

“… What?” Erick imagined he would have felt his stomach drop, if he had had a stomach, at that moment. Everything was happening too fast. “What did I do?”

Fallopolis pointed north. “Do you see the Swamp from here? Well. Theoretically. You can certainly see the part that matters.”

The Swamp did lay to the far north. But from this angle, it was more a void in the kendrithyst landscape, than able to be seen. That part of the Dead City was most firmly on in the Middle Reaches. One part of it did stick up into the air, though; River Tower Gloom. It was a spike of green and black kendrithyst rising up near the middle of the Swamp.

… It was green? And glowing. Brightly. Ahhhhh.

No no no. Erick was sure that he would have noticed such a unique architectural feature of Ar’Kendrithyst. There were no green towers anywhere in the city, and certainly none that glowed so brightly.

“She’s been threatening some shit like this since before I was here. Her tower went off once, you know? That was an annoying set of circumstances. Some adventurers managed to—”

Erick rapidly demanded, “What is it?!”

“Poison, probably. But not just poison. We could solve that fast enough. We might not have [Cleanse], but Void works fine for getting rid of most airy issues.” Fallopolis called out, “Give us your worst, you dead hag!”

As though her words were meant to summon the dead, the green tower glowed even brighter. An image of a woman projected into the sky. It was the grey orcol. Her illusion was as large as one of the fake planets hanging around in the rest of the sky. She spoke, carrying a recorded message across the whole of the Dead City. “To those who finally managed to take my life: Congratulations. Have some poison, some mutative monsters, and my undying curse. Rot on this damned cursed world for the rest of your miserable, short life.”

There was a sinking feeling inside Erick’s center.

“Ha! Poison! Weak!” Fallopolis looked to Erick, “Did you get a curse?”

Erick had been on high alert this whole time, and saw nothing. He reevaluated, and decided, “… No? What would it have looked like?”

“A rainbow splash to your mana sense.”

“No.” Erick said, “Definitely not.”

“Then probably don’t worry about it. Or it might be contained into that silver sphere.” Fallopolis said, “That poison coming out of the Swamp is very real, though. Like I was going to say: we had to clear out of the city and spend a year cleaning up her messes. She was there to throw her potions around to help clean it up, but we obviously won’t be getting that help this time.” As Fallopolis spoke, the green river tower’s waters turned bright green, as a fog rolled out and into the air, like a volcano exploding. The fog spread into the air, but it was much heavier than air. It all fell back to the ground, back out of sight. Erick imagined it layering the land beyond, killing everything it touched. Fallopolis said, “Let’s murder Tania and the rest of them and then we can go save some stupid adventurers in the center lane before the poison reaches them.” She pointed upward, “And those three need to die, too.”

Fallopolis was talking too fast. Mentally, Erick could keep up. But emotionally, he was lagging behind.

Erick said, “Can’t we just [Cleanse] it? Wait. You said we can—”

“Won’t work too well. There’s… What’d you call it? Radiation?” Fallopolis shook her head, then said, “There’s Extreme Light inside there. A lot of it.”

“Fine. Fine.” Erick already knew of a few lightmasks that could block most high energy radiation; they had worked against the Toxic Hydra months ago, too. His lightmasks even seemed to work on particle decay. That was probably a result of [Ward]s ability to negate Particle Magic, more than a lightmask’s ability to block harmful light. Whatever! Erick tossed that thought aside, only to realize that he had actually created a [Lightmask] spell that specifically blocked all forms of harmful light. He moved on, anyway. He said, “I made a [Blessing of Empathy]. Hollowsaur got this Quest.” Erick threw the blue box at her. “Those three above are going after my Blessing, after this is ov—”

Fallopolis glared, saying, “What the fuck, Erick! You’re not going to kill them? I knew you were a pushover but—” She finally glanced at the Quest, and her anger drifted away. “… Hollowsaur got this?”

“Yes.” Erick said, “And he turned the minotaurs into real people— And where the fuck is Tania?”

Fallopolis deeply considered something, as she offhandedly flicked her hand to the north, where she and Tania had been fighting. “Back down there, fending off Caizoa—”

Having got enough answers to his most pressing questions, Erick instantly demanded, “And what the fuck was that attack this morning?! Did you throw those black beams at me while I was running away from Queen? Where’s Queen? What the fuck happened with Caizoa! How many Shades are left?— Shit. I’m panicking. And I can’t take a deep breath, because I’m not flesh and blood right now. Wow. New form of torture.”

“Oh yeah,” Fallopolis agreed. “Processing emotions when you’re in an Elemental Body is tough. I don’t recommend prolonged usage, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.” She rattled off, “Anywho! Tania is likely cleaning up some stragglers before she comes my way. You put a map up down there, yeah? She’s using it, you know. We all are.” Fallopolis glanced down, and behind Erick, at the map below. “She’s murdering Shades as fast as she can. Faster than I ever could, too.” She scrutinized Erick, asking, “Are you not getting Participation for those kills? She’s only finding them because of you.”

Erick was suddenly torn between canceling the spell and letting Tania’s murdering continue. Too many things were happening all at once.

Fallopolis continued, “And the Caizoa-thing was a true mercenary brawl. No one knew who was doing what or how or any of that.” She breathed deep, then said, “I think we got a bit of time, so this? This feels good to talk. Relax a little! Shake out the bones and circulate the blood!” She shivered a bit, and her wounds closed, though her dress remained in tatters. “Anywho: Quilatalap was doing the memory altering, just how it had to be done, and simultaneously, Tania called the meeting and killed a bunch of bastards while I helped on my side. We actually had the upper hand! A little. Tania ran like a rookie, rushing to her next toy, rushing to Caizoa and those other three. But Quilatalap wasn’t done with the memory shit! Tania finished the memory mods herself while I tried to kill her, so it got a bit fucky… I think I accidentally killed the Cook.” She smiled wide. “Tania definitely fucked up with the memory mods somewhere along the way. When we were fighting just now, Caizoa just showed up down there, swinging her butter knife around! Actually managed to clip a few people on Tania’s side! Ah ha! It was wonderful!” She pointed upward, to where Farix, Lapis, and Goldie were. “Those three gotta die, tho. They’re not good people. They don’t deserve a second chance.”

“No one who has done what the Shades have done deserves a second chance, Fallopolis.” Erick said, “But I give them anyway, in hopes that they will know how best to fight the evils that will rise in their place, and because Hollowsaur cried like a baby when someone mentioned that ‘he couldn’t hurt a cow’.”

“Hmm… Glad to see you draw the line somewhere.” Fallopolis pointed to the ball bearing, saying, “Perri would have been too much to handle.”

“… Yes. Well.” Erick had no idea why he killed Perri so quickly, compared to the rest, and now that he had done it, he felt a twinge of remorse. But then [Hunter’s Instincts] told that part of his brain to quiet-down-now, and Erick said, “She tortured Teressa. I couldn’t live with myself if I let the Witch live, especially after she tried to trick me twice.”

“She likely tried to trick you much more than that. You remember when Tania told you to stay away from her, way back when you killed Dorofiend? Tania probably had Perri looking over you this whole time.” Fallopolis asked, “What was the other time she tried to trick you? Besides just now?”

Erick almost answered, but then he asked, “When was the first time we met, today?”

“When I woke you up with the fight with Queen over your room. I didn’t throw any beams at you, though. Not on purpose.” Fallopolis looked Erick over again, saying, “You don’t sound so good.” She nodded, then said, “Tell you what: Why not hand over a few of those [Luminous Traps] attached to rocks, or something, and let me use them to trap some bad guys? I can clip them with a telekinetic push, and that seems to be all that’s necessary to trap a Shade, so when I capture them, you can do whatever you did to Perri! You can get all that experience! Simple! Effective!”

Erick answered reflexively, “No.”

Down below on the map of Ar’Kendrithyst, blue dots winked out, one by one. Tania and her posse had been mowing through the central corridor of the Dead City, killing Shades, headed generally north. By the time Perri broadcast her poison-volcano announcement, Tania had shifted west, hard. She was headed straight for the Aerie, where four moving blue dots stood their final ground.

Erick could not really see the actual action happening over there, but he was high enough in the sky to see the Aerie. It was a bright red place, a craggy mountain that stuck up from the rest of Ar’Kendrithyst like a crooked thorn. It had to be over sixty kilometers away, from the lower wall of Ar’Kendrithyst all the way into the upper sky.

Fallopolis asked, “Why not?”

Erick laid it out there. “Are you going to take on my Blessing? Are you someone who should survive this culling?”

For a long moment Fallopolis said nothing. She just watched Erick. And then she turned away, and gazed out at the Aerie, far, far in the distance. She said, “I don’t need a chain around my soul to make me do right by the people of this world.”

“Get a Quest from the gods, then.”

“I cannot do that. I will not work with them. Not now, not ever.” Fallopolis said, “A lot of people come to the Clergy to gain power over others. These are the people who need your Blessing and that Quest. These shackles will make them better people, and allow them to better serve Melemizargo’s ultimate goals of rejoining the Relevant Entities. For my own role as the Culler of Melemizargo, I can tell that what you’re doing is the proper course.” After a moment, she said, “But I came here to never be powerless again, and to especially not be powerless against the gods. They took my Wizard mother from me in a Forgotten Campaign. That was not a lie. I will never willingly go to those who took my world from me. I will never allow myself to be a part of their power.” She looked to Erick, declaring, “If I need to kill Tania alone, I will do this alone. I will likely die, but if that is my fate then so be it.”

Erick looked to Fallopolis. Then slightly left, at the kendrithyst staff floating next to her. It had broken in half, and yet she kept it. Erick inclined his head at it, saying, “Got an extra staff?”

Fallopolis scrunched her eyebrows together, then glanced at the staff next to her. “This is just an affectation. Nothing special about it. I was never one for artifacts or trinkets.”

Erick shook his head. “For the [Luminous Trap]. I need an item to bind to the trap.” He thought for a second, and added, “And for the counterspelling ooze to hold.”

“Oh!” Fallopolis hovered the staff his way, saying, “Just use this one! How long does the ooze last? Eh. No. Don’t bother with that part.”

Erick grabbed the staff with a tendril of light and held it for a moment, thinking. He had an Ophiel cast a [Mend] upon the red-purple crystal. The staff flexed out to two meters long, looking perfectly fine. Erick stopped. He turned to Fallopolis, suddenly worried, and probably for no good reason. He said, “Some rules, just so that you can’t claim that I didn’t ask you not to, later.”

Fallopolis winced, breathing out through clenched teeth. “Shit— Fine! What do you want?”

“A non-binding oath that you won’t be like the Shades everyone thinks of when they think of ‘Shade’.”

“Easy!” Fallopolis said, “I agree.”

Erick nodded, slowly, then said, “And you can’t scoop up every Shade and then run away with them under your control. I want them either dead or Blessed into accepting the new world order, where Shades are a part of a good and helpful society.”

“Also easily agreed!”

“And now, the binding one.”

Fallopolis flinched. Her voice matched Erick’s for power, as she began to speak in cadence.

“A demand you have, of me I see. I cans’t not guess what it could be!”

“A little thing I tell you true, the only thing I want from you.”

“I am intrigued. What could this be? What binding doest thou string round me?”

“I want the truth for now and ever. Deception: No. No sense how clever.”

The manasphere tumbled around Erick and Fallopolis, like churning waters, hinting at movement far below. Erick’s voice had turned hard. Fallopolis matched him power for power.

“You wish for us a bond of truth? You surely do now show your youth. Lies can also love and lift! They are not always harmful grift.”

“A point well made yet and here now, I will not be your slaughtered cow. Lies from you cannot not harm... though I will settle for alarm.”

“A binding then, between us two. Alarms for both, for me and you. Upon the timing of a lie, we shall now know each other by.”

“The bond is struck, a light-touch thing. A working barely deep as fling. But here and now and evermore, it is a part of both our cores.”

“Accepted with the grace of God! I will not ever be a fraud.”

“Then here’s a blessing struck forsooth. This working sounds ‘gainst honest truth.”

The world pulsed around Erick as it pulsed around Fallopolis. Something tiny slipped around him, as the same thing slipped around her. And then it was gone, or rather, invisible. Fallopolis smiled, as she breathed hard like she had just run around a city block.

Erick briefly returned to his human body and breathed hard, too. He briefly noticed his mana dipped down, maybe only a hundred points. Maybe less. Not much, in the grand scheme of things. He recovered faster than Fallopolis.

A blue box appeared.

--

Blessing of Minor Truth, 60 seconds, Sound + Understanding + Acceptance, 100 mana per person 

Every member of the accepting group can tell when the others purposefully lie or obfuscate the truth.

--

Erick returned to his sunform. Fallopolis did the same. And then she flinched away from the air in front of her like a surprised goat.

“What the shit!” She said, “I got a box! I haven’t had a box in 400 years!” She flapped her hand through the air, wide-eyed, dismissing the box. She tapped the air a few times, and suddenly went from happy to annoyed. “Oh.” Fallopolis looked to Erick. “Not connected to the Script again. Just the one box. Damn. Thought I’d get [Cleanse] again.” She looked to Erick. “Could you…?”

Erick inundated her with a [Cleanse]. Thick air blasted away from her, while Erick asked, “What benefit does that give you?”

Fallopolis smirked. “Let’s test out this alarm.” She smacked her lips, then said, “It makes me clean—”

A soundless buzz sounded in Erick’s soul, like a buzzing bee had somehow gotten inside his chest and decided to do the mamba. Fallopolis must have noticed his reaction, because she stopped talking.

Erick said, “So that was a lie.”

“Technically, that was not a lie. It was—” Fallopolis paused when she saw Erick experience another buzz. It was smaller than the one before, but Erick still felt the Shade’s lie, and he purposefully let Fallopolis know he knew her lie by the expression on his face. Fallopolis hummed, then continued, “[Cleanse] does make me cleaner—” Buzz. “But the truth! The truth is that [Cleanse] also balances the mana in my soul and body, and enables easier manual magic.” She paused, staring at Erick; waiting. Erick was waiting, too, but nothing buzzed. Fallopolis said, “And that’s what I used your [Cleanse] for.”

No buzz.

Erick said, “Well. Okay then.”

Fallopolis looked to the side for a moment. Then she looked to Erick. “Tell me a lie.”

“Tania wants to fight for the humans.”

Fallopolis did a little involuntary dance. “Ohohohoh. That’s a lot!” She looked away. She looked back, saying, “Gimmie another lie.”

“If you destroyed the Script, Veird would be fine.”

Fallopolis frowned at him, then said, “Again.”

“I appreciate those who play games with my life and my people.”

“Getting a bit deep there, Erick.” She added, “Anyway! No buzz on that last one. Good. Turned mine down to nothing.”

“You can do that?”

“Sure. I’m not walking over dragon eggs around you, but you’re free to do whatever.” Fallopolis said, “Minor Blessing, and you even called it ‘a working deep as fling’. Here, try to adjust yours: The sun is blue.”

Buzz.

Erick said, “I don’t want to adjust mine right now.”

“Fair enough.”

Fallopolis nodded, and turned toward the north. Over the last few minutes, the fireworks had multiplied. Giant plumes of brilliant light. A sudden tempest of crawling blue. A smashing cacophony of sound that pulsed the sky, sending a visible shockwave across Ar’Kendrithyst.

All the while, the grey mist seeping from the Swamp kept going.

Erick turned away from the ongoing battle, and worked on the staff, taking his mind off the upcoming fight until it got here. Fixing up the staff took a lot less time than he would have liked. He just cast a black sphere a meter across into the air directly above the top of the 2-meter long staff, locking the spell to its position. It was done. With a twist of some tendrils of light, Erick experimented with handling the staff.

Fallopolis eyed him and the giant lollipop of dark doom. She smiled.

While he played around with the staff, Erick asked Fallopolis the same questions he had asked her before, and in much the same way, but a lot more specific. Did she promise to be a ‘good Shade’? Did she promise to either kill or convert the Shades she captured with the mobile black sphere? Did she promise not to screw Erick over when this was all over? Fallopolis answered truthfully and quickly until that last one. For that one, she paused before answering.

She looked at him, and said, “I won’t intentionally harm you or yours.” She added, “And I’ll do you one better! I also won’t, through inaction, allow bad things to happen to you without at least warning in advance, as much as I can.”

There was no buzz.

… Erick handed her the lollipop of dark doom. She took it, gleefully, careful to keep the dark end well away from herself. She cackled, just a little, and then spun the staff around like she was leading a parade.

Erick asked, “What does it feel like to get sucked into one of those?”

“Oh~ You know~ Pain beyond imagining. Doesn’t stop being painful, either, because the spell sucks in and traps all ambient light and thus you’re inundated with waaaay too much light.” Fallopolis said, “Can’t think. Can’t cast. Very painful. Worst pain I’ve ever felt, actually, because it’s not a killing pain. It’s just pain.”

“… Sorry to hear that,” Erick said, feeling a hole where his heart usually was.

“Huh.” Fallopolis looked at him. “Truth.”

“You turned it back on?”

“On and off as I want.” She waved the staff around, asking, “Have you been trapped in one of these yet?”

“Parts of me.” Erick said, “I don’t get sucked in all the way like you do.”

“I doubt you’d experience the pain, anyway. You’re not shadow-aligned.”

Moments passed.

Erick pointed at the staff, saying, “It’s vulnerable to [Dispel]. Best watch out for that.”

With a wide smile, Fallopolis said, “I’ve already fixed that.”

“… Truth?” Erick startled for a moment. “How?”

“An application of my own abilities.”

Erick willed the [Luminous Trap] to cancel. It burst.

“Bah!” Fallopolis sighed at him, then handed him back the staff. “Make it smaller this time, please. Contrary to every warrior out there, stupid-giant weapons are just giant acts of stupidity.”

Erick cast another [Luminous Trap] upon the top of the staff, shaping it to look almost like a natural extension of the crystal, but with a gap between the crystal and the magic. “Better?”

“Perfect!” Fallopolis cackled again.

Erick asked, “So what are you doing, exactly? To make it [Dispel] proof?”

Fallopolis gazed at the dark blot at the end of the crystal, and said, “I’m wrapping my personal Domain around the area. I’m glad you can’t tell, but, here: I’ll make it visible for a moment.”

Erick had been looking at the staff and seeing nothing special, but at Fallopolis’s direction, the mana around the staff and the spell at the top lit up like a bonfire made of intent. It was like glimpsing the tendrils around Poi’s head, but times a thousand. It completely occluded the [Luminous Trap] at the top of the staff. Between moments, the display vanished; returned to invisibility.

Fallopolis said, “A more esoteric use of a Domain, but one of the most useful.”

“Oh. Aura Domain magic.” Erick said, “Not one of the Elemental Domain magics. Ugh. So many things in that book that the Librarian gave me that I haven’t had a chance to try.”

“This one is easy enough.” Fallopolis said, “You’ve already been doing this with your ball-of-light form and those spells that bounced off of it. The Elemental version is a little less strong than the Aura version, but not by much. The actual trick I’m employing is not getting sucked into the void myself. I think all the ball has to do is touch a Shade’s aura and it sucks… them… in...” Her voice trailed off.

The entire Aerie glowed white, shining like a lighthouse for all of Ar’Kendrithyst.

And then a detonation shook the top of that glowing mountain, shifting the glow from white to darker, and the entire mountain suddenly became a bright, cherry-red brilliance.

Erick felt the worst sort of panic. Maybe it was part of his enhanced Perception. Maybe it was something more primal, as though he saw his life flashing before his eyes. Whatever the case, his first instincts were for other people; those too close to the Aerie to escape unharmed.

He made six Ophiel rush forward, fast as they could possibly go, to three locations. One pair went to Hollowsaur and the minotaurs, still on the beach of Lake Leviathan. Another pair went to Hollowsaur’s plateau, to protect his little green people as much as Erick could. The last two went to those who he rescued from Dorofiend, at the Bend in the North River. Those six Ophiel barely made it in time for Erick to megaphone panicked, loud warnings of what was coming. Three Ophiel cast giant [Stillness]s, changing all sound above a whisper to bright light, causing the mouths of the people in those spaces to blink with glowing bubbles as they yelled in response to Erick’s sudden warning. The secondary Ophiel in those three spaces turned themselves into full powered [Prismatic Ward]s, like deflector shields, outside of the main area where the people were, and heavily sloped in the direction of the Aerie. Hopefully they could deflect the blast up and out, and they weren’t just blown away by an explosion that looked large enough to break the entire Dead City.

With a final touch, Erick had the surviving Ophiel in those three spaces, still in their sunforms, cast themselves as wide as they could go, stretching into the light, turning it solid, expanding themselves as they protectively wrapped around everyone they could reach.

Meanwhile an Ophiel near Erick and Fallopolis cast a [Stillness] all around the two of them, while another created himself into a [Prismatic Ward] deflector that faced the Aerie.

Five seconds had passed. Fallopolis had not been motionless, either. She had cast her own deflector, far ahead, in front of Erick’s [Prismatic Ward], as the two of them stared at the glowing Aerie. The mountain was now a structure of bright-orange iron, like it was fresh out of the forge and ready to be hammered into shape.

Erick barely had time to yell at the sky above, telling the other Shades to come into his protection, before the Aerie exploded. Goldie, Farix, and Lapis stepped up behind Erick, behind the shield he had created, while Fallopolis cast more dark magics forward, and Lapis let loose with some sort of tiny trinket that crumbled into dust and erected a massive bubble all around the five of them.

Clinically, Erick compared what he saw now to what he had seen in a documentary about Krakatoa.

80 kilometers away, the visible kilometers of the mountain known as the Aerie became fire and expanded faster than the speed of sound. The interior blast was short lived, and maybe only reached a good fifteen kilometers away from every part of the Aerie, from the peak to the base all the way down in the Lower Reaches.

The shockwave was larger.

Nearby crystal towers, themselves maybe 40 kilometers tall, broke. The smaller fragments rode the white shockwave like they were surfers. Only a few of the larger ones remained visible, as the pressure wave expanded.

A dozen illusionary planets vanished from the sky.

The shockwave grew; a white bubble of air and pressure imposing its will upon the world. Towers crashed into other towers. Crystal blasted into the sky. Erick had the Ophiel near the three locations solidify as much as possible, but he knew it would not be enough.

Erick had one spell he could cast himself, though, through those Ophiel, but to choose one area was to damn the other two. That didn’t matter. He still had to save one. The Ophiel near Hollowsaur rushed forward, into the blast, while Erick cast a [Stillness] into the shockwave. The spell slipped into the air, shaped like a plow, but not before the shockwave hit the sunform Ophiel, popping him like he was an old soap bubble.

Erick watched, from his own perch, a good distance away, as the shockwave rolled over that first [Stillness], turning some of that power into light which flashed across the entirety of Ar’Kendrithyst, like a lightbulb giving its last. The shockwave continued on as though it had hit a very small rock.

Three more lightbulbs burst, deep down inside the kendrithyst towers.

More towers crashed away from the explosion.

The shockwave continued. It crawled across the Swamp, sending up massive plumes of grey smoke, and cracking the green tower.

The edge reached Erick like an oncoming wall of force. The world turned white. The shockwave was too much. If Erick had ears, they would have burst. If he had eyes, he would have been blinded. He had none of those things, and so he merely felt as though someone fired a cannon next to his non-corporeal head. His own [Personal Ward] flashed white, but it was hard to tell that when everything else was also as bright as the sun.

The Shades did not appreciate the light. The four of them instantly went down, almost falling out of the sky. With four tendrils of light and the help of his Ophiel, he caught Lapis, Goldie, Farix, and Fallopolis, before they fell too far.

The shockwave passed. Seconds later, it struck the edge of the Shadow’s Feast Barrier and rebounded, coming back for a second showing. Instead of a cannon blast, it was merely the sound of a shotgun fired right next to his head. Lapis and Farix both screamed in pain as the world turned white again, thanks to Erick’s Stillness. Erick hadn’t heard them do that the first time. Goldie merely flinched upon Erick’s sunform platform, as she turned darker while the light turned brighter; an eclipse-like form that Erick had already seen Bulgan do when he had fought the Shade over Candlepoint. Fallopolis gritted her teeth as she similarly withstood the blast.

The entirety of Ar’Kendrithyst became a sounding bowl as sound bounced on the Feast Barrier and tore across the sky, from every direction, hitting from the left and the right, from the top and the bottom. Erick’s [Stillness] popped on the second passage.

Time passed, and eventually, the resounding shockwave had lost its power.

Erick re-summoned his Ophiel, as he was able. Every single one he had set forward was gone. He sent more forward as he could, to check on what had become of the people out there.

Hollowsaur’s plateau was gone. Simply… not there anymore; replaced by a hole in the ground where the crystal had likely broken below, and the top had fallen through. Much of the Jungle was either on fire or knocked down to the ground, or uprooted. Erick doubted that anyone on that plateau had survived. His deflector [Prismatic Ward] was not there; it had taken too much damage and broke.

Back on the beach, Hollowsaur huddled against the ground with the minotaurs and a few small green people, inside a structured assortment of bubbles, one on top of the other, while black flames grew on the sands all around them. They had layered themselves in overlapping [Ward]s, which was understandable, and some of Hollowsaur’s flames, for whatever reason. It was enough for some, but not for all. Many people were bleeding, and in pain. Some who had been outside of the center [Ward]s were dead. Erick’s [Prismatic Ward], shaped like a slope, had managed to throw much of the debris up and over the party. It might have saved their lives.

But the beach was gone. All of the middle layer was built upon dense crystal pillars. Somehow, the pillars under Hollowsaur’s particular beach-front remained strong. But all around, the supporting pillars must have been disturbed. Sand slipped through holes in the ground. Water vanished down whirlpools.

Where the Aerie had been, only 20 kilometers away, the land was in much worse shape.

Not a kilometer from Hollowsaur, the land dropped away into a crater where crystals floated in midair, like lazy rocks, and Lake Leviathan drained down into the dark. The nearby land, which had been supported in equilibrium with the weight of the water that made up the lake in the center of it all, was beginning to slip even further. Landslides started all around the Jungle as the supportive water slipped away into the dark of the Lower Reaches.

Erick’s [Stillness] had popped around Hollowsaur, so he had no trouble to shout at the Shade and his people, “You’ve got to move! That land is not stable!”

Hollowsaur flinched, but he didn’t do much more than that. He was alive, though. Some of his people were crawling toward him. Some of the minotaurs were staring at their own hands, and at the destruction all around. With a quick tendril of light, Erick saved a disoriented green person from falling down into the nearby chasm. He set the guy onto the edge of the rest of the gathering, and told them all to get moving. Some responded. Some became aware of their surroundings. The group started to move.

Erick turned his gaze toward the Bend at the North River.

It was half gone.

Erick’s [Stillness] was also gone, but people had managed to get [Ward]s into the air. It was an uncoordinated mess compared to Hollowsaur’s structured defenses, but they had been behind a lot of intervening crystals, too… Shit. Maybe Erick should have put his first [Stillness] here? And not on Hollowsaur? Shit.

But… These people had been behind a lot of intervening crystal. They should have been a lot better off than Hollowsaur, who was on the unobstructed beach. And yet...

A myriad of uncoordinated people were already running around and healing others. Some were up and walking around in a daze. The North River was currently trickling out of what remained of its aqueduct, because this area had not been that safe, at all.

Erick quickly surmised what had happened when he looked a bit further, looking for survivors. A crystal tower had fallen through the space taking out the intake and the exit of the Bend. That broken spire had crashed just off center of their defenses. Broken crystals now hovered in the air down below. People flew down into the dark below, [Fly]ing however they could, screaming out names, trying to find those who they had lost.

The intervening crystal had likely both saved many of them, but also killed just as many.

Erick had his Ophiel hover into the dark, into the center of where the crystal tower had fallen, into the center of the searching party. He cast a [Cascade Imaging] into the space, shaped for that specific area, searching for ‘People’. And then he had that Ophiel come right back.

The fight wasn’t over. The Barrier was still up, after all. That meant that Tania was still alive. The end would come soon enough. Erick just had to survive what he could survive.

Ar’Kendrithyst had changed, though. Where once there was a 60 kilometer tall spike of crystal, going from the very bottom wall of the Dead City, all the way to the top and beyond, there was now a hole, ten kilometers across at the smallest point, twenty five kilometers across at the largest, which seemed to be a crack that went all the way through to the center of Lake Leviathan. Those deep, dark waters drained into the Lower Reaches. Erick watched, as dead leviathans and other, larger monsters, fell down hundreds of new waterfalls.

He wondered if Undine had survived. Only nine illusionary worlds remained up above. Only nine Shades were left.

Erick looked down into the bowl of the Brightwater, where most of the people of Ar’Kendrithyst lived. The ever present light down there was fading. Erick couldn’t make out much of the devastation down there, but Ophiel could. Erick felt his heart sink again, but also buoy, for while there were people walking around in dazes with blood trickling from ears, there were also people helping other people.

Farix, Goldie, Lapis, and Fallopolis had all managed to regain their stance in the air. Lapis took down the bubble barrier around them; it was already broken in almost every direction, anyway. Fallopolis’s shadow barrier was gone; destroyed by the shockwave. All this time, Erick had been resummoning his Ophiel as necessary and gearing up for another conflict when they weren’t out scouting. Each Ophiel now held a rock with their own [Prismatic Ward] attached to that rock, while they were all in their sunforms, with [Pure Reflection Ward], [Hunter’s Instincts], and a few different Sights active.

Erick asked, “Does Tania still live? The Barrier is still up.”

No one seemed to want to answer Erick, which told him as much as he needed to know.

He asked a different question, “I see people walking around in the Brightwater. Are they going to be okay?”

That seemed to open the floodgates.

Farix rapidly said, “Maybe. I told my people to get to cover in the secondary bunkers.”

Goldie said, “They’re not okay. Not many people survived that.”

“I didn’t know…” Lapis said, “I didn’t know they set the Aerie to do that. Who did that?”

Fallopolis said, “I don’t know. That was news to me.”

Goldie said, “I’m guessing Rodel was involved. Not sure why.”

“Probably everyone there was involved in some way. Rodel. Spinner. Skyhook. Natis.” Fallopolis guessed, “They probably gave Tania an ultimatum and she said ‘no’.”

Farix asked, “Rodel? The Shade of Whispers? He wasn’t on Tania’s side?”

“He was human.” Fallopolis asked, “Did you not know that?”

Farix looked toward where the Aerie had been. “No. I did not.”

Erick finally spoke, “That was Evil.” He turned to the Shades, and pointed at where the Aerie had been. “That is why the higher magics should be further restricted. No one should be able to do that. Not even when there are more worlds, and more places to escape to. That should not be allowed to exist. Surely you have seen shit just as bad as that before!”

Goldie frowned. Lapis absentmindedly nodded.

Farix said, “We can argue the Script another time.”

Erick asked, “Who else has set up bombs for when they die?”

Lapis was the only one who gave away the game; she looked to the other three Shades, while nervously shifting on her feet.

Erick snapped, “WHAT THE FUCK.” He demanded of anyone who could answer, “WHO?!”

“No time to talk!” Fallopolis said, holding her staff up high. “Here they come!”

Seconds stretched unfathomably long.

Goldie vanished. Farix stepped far away. Lapis panicked, froze, then thawed out half a moment later, a calm descending over her entire body. She turned to shadows as several trinkets cracked and broke from her fingers, her neck, and around one of her ankles.

Bulgan released a blast of air that mirrored the explosion of the Aerie, but much smaller, and completely aimed at the four of them. Mostly at Erick. Erick hadn’t even seen him arrive.

- - - -

For all of Bulgan’s bluster, his attack had moved Erick backward a hundred meters, and nothing more.

Ah.

And then Erick saw the purpose of the attack. It was to scatter their lines; to move Ophiels all around. The sunform [Familiar]s had been pushed back and out, much, much further than Erick had been. Lapis remained behind, as though she had been purposefully missed. Bulgan went for her next, possibly because she was the closest, but more likely because his attack was the orchestration of a martial mind. Lapis had been human at one point in time, after all, and that seemed to be all Bulgan really cared about; killing humans. Bulgan shot forward, directing his fist up into the enchanter’s chest—

Time seemed slowed, even further. Erick wasn’t quite sure how, or why. Perhaps it was the metaphysical equivalent of adrenaline? Whatever the case, his mind was certainly making use of the current vibrancy running through his entire soul and sunform body. Offhandedly, he recognized that his Ophiel had taken some hits. They were all down to half stability, though their reflective shells and their inner [Prismatic Ward] cores had remained; only their sunforms had been damaged.

With a directed thought, Erick had an Ophiel lightstep forward. The feathered ball of sun gleefully stepped between Bulgan and Lapis, right as Bulgan’s fist turned to bright shadows, right before he would have driven his unfurled, claw-like hand into the woman’s chest. Ophiel took the attack meant for Lapis, shoving the woman out of the way at the same time.

Ah. This was a Skill, wasn’t it?

Erick barely registered that he had gotten a new blue box for recreating the Skill, [Interception]. Jane had this Skill. All it did was move the user into the line of attack meant for another.

Ophiel popped, as Bulgan’s fist tore through his center, exploding the air beyond with a concentrated blast of shadows and light. Only Ophiel perished. Lapis was outside of the attack, completely. She countered by reaching out and flexing the manasphere, pinching the space around Bulgan.

Bulgan winced, flipping away like a cockroach from the light, as the air around his previous location turned in on itself with an implosion. Neither of them won the exchange, and Lapis had likely lost, simply because she used up a few trinkets to make her attack.

Others had been moving all this time, of course. Erick glanced at them, comprehending the mishmash of strategies they were already carrying out, as he made his own. Two Ophiel manually cast a pair of [Force Beam]s at Bulgan, avoiding the use of their global cooldown, but they cut those spells out almost instantly when Bulgan soaked up that light like a happy visitor to a sunny beach.

Erick was in the midst of enacting his own magics and using his Ophiel’s global cooldowns, when another Shade appeared.

Queen. In all her radiant, iridescent self, she touched the sky, and the sky responded with a thousand bolts of power, in every color of the deadly rainbow, her spells flowing like a flock of a million birds toward all of them. Most of her working was a weak, widespread attack, meant to hide the larger spells, but Erick saw those hidden threats in the brilliance of their mana signatures; sharks hiding among the school of fish.

Fallopolis rushed Queen, staff held behind her, none of the calm joy of their previous fight on her features.

Erick almost tried a dangerous tactic. He almost stepped right into the path of one of those brilliant bolts. He almost turned himself fully human, to experience a bit of pain, to cause a deviation in Queen’s core. But he had eyes on the whole sky. He saw Bulgan, waiting. The man’s bright white eyes might not have given a true indication of where he was looking, but Erick didn’t need a specific look to know that Bulgan’s only true target this fight was him.

So he did not walk into their trap.

When he decided that, he saw Tania’s plan fall apart. Bulgan hadn’t moved in moments. Queen continued her area assault. But all the Shades on Erick’s side were moving to encircle. And then it was Erick’s move.

One Ophiel released a 10,000 point [Harmonic Blood Ooze] at Queen. Another released the same spell at Bulgan. Two vibrant red oozes, ethereal and deadly, zipped through the sky like to red laser blasts. Bulgan and Queen both dodged. Bulgan’s face split into a massive smile, as he looked to Queen. Queen did not look at him, and yet, acknowledgement passed between them.

Queen stepped backward, into the ooze. She did not have to step as far back as she thought she needed to step. That was the first indication that they had underestimated Erick. Those blood oozes were a step up from ‘Unerring’, they were ‘inexorable’. They were also ethereal. The ooze aimed at Bulgan curved harder than he would have thought, too. It struck him on the forearm, then whipped around and enveloped the rest of him.

Queen tried to turn to shadows to escape. It didn’t work. She tried again. It worked. The ooze slipped away, but it was a persistent bloody booger. It came right back at Queen, slicing through her shadows with ethereal tendrils. Her third attempt at ridding herself of the monster went a lot better. The ooze slipped away, through the sky, before coming right back. All of that took place in two seconds. Bulgan had much the same experience.

Erick realized something fundamental he had gotten wrong in his thinking of his [Harmonic Blood Ooze]. They were subject to the global cooldown, too. Ah. This was but a small mistake, when it came right down to it. They were still ethereal. They still caused constant damage. This was good.

Queen’s prismatic rainstorm continued to flow around the whole of the sky, pelting Erick’s sunform, and everyone else, with constant tiny explosions of power. A larger explosion rocked against Lapis's body, and then another struck Farix, all the way to the left, seeming to be out of the fight. Maybe he was waiting for the right attack to come, to counter that?

As if responding to Erick’s thoughts, and only four seconds since the battle had been joined, Farix released the seals on several of his blood orbs. They became blood beams, thin as razors, but looking like lines of radiance to Erick’s mana sense, as they struck—

At Lapis.

Bulgan laughed as he fully tore the ooze off of him.

His laugh ended when Lapis turned to something resembling glass, or perhaps illusion, or some other esoteric element, or power. Perhaps it was merely the result of a few different single-use trinkets that Lapis had been saving for a rainy day, and today’s prismatic rain seemed worthy of the sacrifice. Farix’s blood beams struck her, soaking into her glass-like form, becoming something more, something darker and brighter at the same time, as Lapis lifted her own arm out, pointing at Queen.

Blood beams became blood columns, erupting from every part of Lapis’s see-through body, in every direction, only to catch on some illusionary force in the air, to redirect toward Queen. Every flow of power converged on the prismatic Shade.

Queen raised several shields, the blood ooze not working nearly as well against a Shade as Erick would have liked. Ah. He had made a mistake. How could he miss such an obvious mistake? Of course the oozes could only counterspell every 20 seconds. Oh well.

All in all, Erick’s miscalculation wasn’t the worst mistake he could have made.

Lapis’s redirected blood columns struck, breaking through all of Queen’s shields, striking her body like an industrial water-cutter, carving flesh. The columns of blood did not so much cut, as simply vanish parts of Queen.

Queen did not die, though the ooze was certainly gone, now.

Farix’s spells cut out first.

Some of Queen’s prismatic storms still rained on Lapis, catching in her body, transforming into something stronger. With a calm redirection of her glass-like arm, she lensed that rainbow rain stronger, taking in the larger bolts in the storm, turning all of that into further power. Power she directed at Bulgan.

Bulgan was forced to defend. Mostly, he slipped back and forth, putting up shadows in the air to catch and diffuse the bolts as they swung around for another hit. Tiny shields exploded with rainbow force, while Bulgan remained unaffected. But he was distracted for long enough for someone else to move into position.

Fallopolis, who had been waiting for the right moment, stepped next to Queen’s destroyed body, and swiped her staff through what remained. Erick was sure he saw Queen’s face turn panicked right before her body vanished into the black orb. Instantly, Fallopolis channeled darkness through her staff, flipping the power she imbued inside into something else, into brightest light, before it flooded the [Luminous Trap] at the end.

A notification for Queen’s death rolled across Erick’s vision.

Bulgan was still dealing with Lapis’s counter, but he frowned when he saw what Fallopolis had done.

A large, hateful part of Erick was overjoyed to see Bulgan suffer.

Several seconds had passed since the start of the fight. Tania had yet to show. And then she did. Her pale violet skin was unmarred, and her dark leathers, that mirrored Bulgan’s, were untouched by war. She held nothing, but she didn’t need to. Divine fire licked across the edge of her form, looking much the same as Yetta had looked all those months ago. Back then, Erick thought the sight of divine fire was rather nice.

Now, that divine fire was worrying. Tania had stepped into the air right beside Fallopolis. She had been late. The Champion of Melemizargo arrived half a second after the Culler of Melemizargo had already killed Queen.

With a clawed hand, empowered by divine fire to magnify her strikes into something resembling those of her patron, Tania struck at Fallopolis, carving through the staff, obliterating the [Luminous Trap]. Fallopolis stepped away, abandoning the staff to its fate. It had done a decent job.

There were 8 worlds in the sky, now. Only 8 Shades left.

Goldie, Fallopolis, Farix, and Lapis were near Erick. And then there was Tania and Bulgan against them, while Hollowsaur was still at the beach. Probably. That left one Shade unaccounted for. Who was it? Where were they?

Tania pulled back, stepping away. Bulgan stepped to her side, just as Farix shot another mess of blood beams at Bulgan. Bulgan conjured tiny deflector shields, and scattered those beams wide.

The Champion and her consort had gone out of range. Tania and Bulgan stood in the sky, three hundred meters away. They conferred with each other for three seconds.

Erick almost reflexively recast another Ophiel, to bring him back up to 10. But they might have been waiting for that; waiting for him to use the only global cooldown he might get. Instead of that, Erick watched his enemies, having yet another surreal moment, as he considered the fact that he had ‘enemies’ at all. He stowed that thought away, as he watched, and understood what was happening over there, though no words were exchanged, and their white eyes gave nothing away.

Tania seemed to speak to Bulgan, without micro-expression or bodily indication, “This is going to hurt you, baby, but it has to be done. Take him out while you can.”

There was likely more nuance and hatred and grandstanding involved in her real words.

Bulgan responded non-verbally, seeming to say, “I’ll always protect you, Tania. Let’s do it.”

That was a total guess. Of course, it might have been possible for Bulgan to see himself as Tania’s protector. But, the more rational side of Erick’s mind painted Bulgan more as Tania’s hired gun, while Bulgan himself didn’t know that he was disposable. But then again… In Goldie’s version of one possible future, Bulgan died first, and then Tania lost all restraints and wiped everyone else from the sky. Maybe Tania truly did love the man? Maybe Bulgan truly loved Tania?

Ah... But what did the love between Evils matter, in the grand scheme of things? Erick was not delusional enough to offer a way out for Tania or Bulgan. There was no high-road to take, right now. No meeting-of-the-minds, to find a way forward. There was only kill or be killed in return, with failure resulting in a new eruption of the Quiet War, where Tania led the way to the death of all humans.

Erick was reminded of a conversation he had with Anhelia, the iron wrought lady at the front desk of the Mage Guild. She had wanted Erick to help her kill all the Shades. Her plan for him had been to flood the city with as much power as he possibly could, to tip the war from stagnation, into a final end. What would she have thought, now that almost all the Shades were gone?

Erick also went over every spell he had ever made, looking for the best one for this moment. [Death Spiral Plasma] would probably get ripped off, or slithered out of. [Electrolysis Bomb] was a no-go; it’d take too long and he doubted there was water inside any Shade. His light spells would get absorbed. Perhaps… his firelight spells? Maybe an aurified [Vivid Gloom]. Now was the time for such a thing, after all. It would trap everyone in this space, and Erick could probably exempt the Shades on his side… Probably?

While Erick considered, Tania acted first, and proved her power as the Champion of Melemizargo. Divine fire flared. Darkness cracked the world around her, and light poured out from that darkness, into the sky. It was the start of Erick’s own [Vivid Gloom].

With a deep, sinking feeling, Erick recognized what was happening. Either Melemizargo’s power or Tania’s own allowed her to copy spells. Maybe both. She might have even been a Copy Mage in her previous life.

Fallopolis roared a few expletives at Tania, but the roar of the breaking world was much louder.

Divine fire flared. Light expanded. [Vivid Gloom] billowed outward from the Champion of Melemizargo. Her spell swept out across the sky, enveloping everyone before Erick could counter. Tania turned the world a bright, painful white, while a perfect mirror edge, several kilometers away, cut the seven of them off from the rest of the world.

Light and radiation flared from Tania’s divine center.

Lapis, Fallopolis, and Farix countered the attack in what would have been an easy way, except for the radiation. The three of them erected shadow-barriers around themselves, enacting their own analogue to a [Weather Ward], or perhaps a [Lightward]. Whatever they tried, it was not good enough. All three of their shadow-barriers instantly collapsed, though all three of them erected more with each passing moment of Tania’s attack.

Erick and his Ophiel were already made of light, so while [Pure Reflection Ward] took care of most of the incoming damage, flexing the edges of their sunforms into lightward-adjacent effects only took a thought, and that flex stopped all damage from Tania’s [Vivid Gloom].

But that was just her aura. She still had all her own power to draw upon; all her own attacks, while her aura continued to harm. Erick recognized the inevitability of his position. Tania did not tire. The shadow barriers around Farix, Lapis, and Fallopolis were already breaking down, faster and faster, as the light inside this mirrored space turned brighter, and brighter.

And then the true brilliance of Tania’s preparations appeared.

Bulgan could feed off of Erick’s magic, which meant he could feed off of Tania’s [Vivid Gloom] Aura. It was a good plan. It was already working. Bulgan and Tania became the only spots of darkness in the mirrored arena.

All thoughts of trapping either of them inside a black void vanished. Bulgan would just eat up the light that gathered inside, and Erick never expected for it to work on Tania, anyway. Even if he did trap either of them, the radiation in the space all around them would have carved holes in those black voids, and let escape anyone he trapped.

He’d still throw a trap out there and see if it worked, though.

Erick stepped an Ophiel next to each Shade on his side. Sunforms did not fully envelope Farix, Fallopolis, or Lapis. Instead, three Ophiel cast three [Lightmask]s, denying all harmful light around each of those he needed on his side.

Farix recovered the same as the other three, but Bulgan was already on him. He yelled about traitors and punched the Professor of Truedark, while Farix fired concentrated blood beams at Bulgan.

Bulgan won the contest of strength.

Farix, the [Lightmask] around him, and the Ophiel protecting him, all perished in a splash of dark-light. Bodies dispersed into fragments that then caught on radioactive fire in the oppressive brilliance, becoming ash, then nothing. Blood orbs carved tiny lines into Bulgan, but the inner light of the [Vivid Gloom] soaked into him. His flesh repaired as soon as it was cut. He never stopped moving. He aimed right for Lapis.

Three Ophiel cast 10,000 point [Hermetic Shredder]s into the radiance all around, each of them creating 9000, 9000-point wires, that they wove into the air around both Tania and Bulgan. Neither of them seemed to care. Both of them stepped through the lines in the sky without damaging themselves. The radiation all around seemed to mess with the spell, breaking the molecular wires like they were naught but cotton candy.

Inside of her [Lightmask], Lapis had half a moment to recover. She barely had time to register the new attack, but she saw Bulgan coming. Her earrings broke. She mumbled something about ‘if I ever had to use it against Erick’, as she smiled, and transformed the space around Bulgan into a fractured zone. Erick wasn’t quite sure what she had done, but Bulgan froze in place. A [Time Stop], or something similar?

No? Yes? Whatever the case, Bulgan was trapped in fractured space. He was still moving, if barely.

Erick was already moving onto his next attack. He had an Ophiel move to Tania. Bulgan’s eyes tracked that movement. Bulgan broke free of Lapis’s fractured space, but not before the Ophiel closer to Tania turned into a mandala of lightning, the halo of [Fulmination Aura] becoming much more when under the direction of a sunform.

Lightning licked off of an envelope of reflection surrounding Tania, zapping away so much water on a duck’s back. She smiled at Ophiel, right before Bulgan struck the [Familiar], turning him into broken mana.

Inside of her [Lightmask], Fallopolis had been preparing. She had been charging an attack; streaming shadows from the edge of Erick’s [Lightmask], into the center of her palm. Erick had no time to smile at that but he still felt oddly proud. Tania’s [Vivid Gloom] surrounded them all, but all that light was still blocked by Erick’s little [Lightmask], and that blockage was enough for Fallopolis to gather shadows from all of the Champion’s light. It was poetic, in a way.

Fallopolis released a carving line of darkness, directly at Tania. Some of that spell evaporated before it could touch Tania, the radiation in the air weakening all other magics. The power that managed to reach Tania did nothing except to flash off of a section of light and shadows a meter away from the Champion, to scatter into the sky like so much wasted potential.

In that same moment, with preternatural swiftness, Bulgan was already halfway to Fallopolis.

Erick reacted, perhaps unsmartly, queuing up a [Harmonic Counterspell] with his own global cooldown, preparing for Bulgan’s inevitable smash against Fallopolis by matching his spell against whatever mana was needed to counter that spell.

Bulgan struck.

His fist connected with Fallopolis; her eyes wide, his eyes narrowed and hateful. Fallopolis did not explode. Bulgan did not win that contest of strength. Nothing happened, except that Erick lost over 15,000 mana; the equivalent of at least 300,000 mana, but likely more. The [Harmonic Counterspell] worked. There was a moment of introspection between Tania, Bulgan, and Fallopolis. The moment passed as fast as the rest of the fight had gone; blink and you’d miss it.

Fallopolis became a being of tentacles and teeth. A monster of myth that Erick imagined that he would have heard about from Jane, or from one of Jane’s highschool friends. She ate Bulgan in a flashing second. A fist punched out of the old ‘woman’s’ writhing mass, while a foot kicked out of the other side, but ‘Fallopolis’ drowned the man inside of her gnashing, ripping, tearing body. She did not spit out any bones. Bulgan was there, and then suddenly, he wasn’t.

Erick got the notification of Bulgan’s death. 95% Participation. He wasn’t quite sure how that happened, but it had.

Barely 9 seconds had passed since the fight started. Erick was down to a few global cooldowns from Ophiel, but he had already used his own.

Tania screamed a lie, “BULGAN!”

Erick instantly saw through the farce. Tania had screamed to draw in someone who had yet to show themselves. Tania’s outpouring of emotion was a good lie. Well made, but still a lie.

A foot-wide sword shot straight through Tania’s body, from back to front, going right through where her core would have been. In that same instant a crack sounded across the sky, breaking the light, and breaking something deep inside the Champion of Melemizargo. Tania’s imitation [Vivid Gloom] flipped off.

The battle returned to the clear skies of Ar’Kendrithyst.

Erick feared for what he saw happening. He hoped that his fears were unfounded. He hoped that Goldie had succeeded. For a moment longer than all the others in the last few hours, Tania took three seconds to touch the plank of metal sticking out from her chest.

Goldie vanished backward. She reappeared as spiders popped out of the sky like trapdoor hunters, grabbing her out of her invisible magics, wrapping her in dark threads that Erick distantly recalled prevented all magic. (There was a way to improve his Blood Ooze in that thread, but how to do it?) That thread was the specialty of the shadow spiders, and suddenly, there were hundreds of those spiders in the air, crawling across Goldie, stabbing her with their fangs, injecting venom that would prevent her from controlling her mana as they wrapped her with more threads. Within seconds, she would likely be dead.

Two Ophiel each released a [Domain of the Withering Slime], each of them becoming an orb of light around an orb of light, while releasing tsunamis of thick air.

“Nope.” Tania said, “My victory.” With one hand, she held her chest as black blood flowed from her wound, while with the other, she splashed shadows and divine fire through the air, defining a space around Goldie where his magic could not reach. Her Domain. “My win.”

Goldie died one second later.

Erick’s Withering Domains might have caused some damage, for he got Participation in her death. 95%, again. His heart sunk at that number. He knew he did not do that much damage to her, for Shades didn’t have water inside of them, right? And yet…

The thick air of Ophiels’ spells washed over Tania, but did not touch her. They didn’t touch Fallopolis, or Lapis, either. Erick had correctly exempted Fallopolis and Lapis from those Domains, but Tania escaped in some other way.

Tania smiled at the world, and declared, “It’s over!”

The spiders retreated back into the empty air, vanishing from sight, right as Erick cast an [Electrolysis Bomb] from one Ophiel and a [Luminous Trap] from the other. Tania escaped the first by splashing shadows over herself, but didn’t bother with the second. The [Luminous Trap] just broke when it touched her. She could not be trapped.

Ah. Shit.

Erick had lost. Time seemed to speed up as he came to the same conclusion several times in the space of a moment. Even if he had ten more casts all lined up and all ready to go, that he would continue to lose, no matter how the previous moments had played out. Goldie had been right. With all his own spells, and even with Goldie’s ability to see through time, all of that was just a trick when compared to overwhelming power, and tricks were useless.

And then Tania started gloating, and Erick’s heart sank further.

“You have lost! I have won!” Tania spoke, “[Pure Reflection Ward] for most of your magics, [Weather Ward] for others, [Lightmask] for all the rest, [Dispel] for all the rest, and my own power reinforcing all of those! And no Script Seconds holding me back!” She smiled, viciously, as she said, “Whereas Bulgan was built to take you down, he does not compare to I who was empowered to murder anyone and everyone who relies on the Script, by using their own magics against them! You have prepared counters for all your own skills while I have no Script Seconds to hold me down. You literally cannot win.” She pointed to the space where Goldie’s body had been. “Even the Shade of Assassination was not enough! And her [Strike]s are fatal on most everything she hits.” Tania smiled. “Mostly.” She said, “If only she had gotten two shots in, maybe she could have killed me, but My God has declared all the Shades must die, and so I work to bring about this future. Even Bulgan needed to be sacrificed to the greater good, for there was no other way to make Goldie come out of the ambient mana.” Tania faked a mournful sigh, and said, “He was a good lay, but I’ll get over it. I will simply have to raise up another to fill my needs.”

Fallopolis said, “You’re talking a lot about Bulgan for someone who didn’t care about him.”

Tania breathed in happiness as she lifted her hand away from her chest. Though her blood remained upon her like thick, black paint, her wound was gone. “I was, wasn’t I.” She said, “Apologies for the amateur gloating. I’ve never done this before. I usually just kill everyone I need to kill, but we’re at the end, and some words must be said if only for the depth of the history forming around us at this very moment.”

“Pompous!” Fallopolis asked, “What now?”

“After I kill you and fulfill my needs?” Tania nodded, saying, “After that.” She spread her hands to her sides, indicating the Dead City below, saying, “Ar’Kendrithyst is to be abandoned to the rest of the world.” She looked to Erick, and lied straight to his face, “You get to live. Hollowsaur too, oddly enough. That curse you put on him is exactly what will enable Melemizargo to transition into the fold as a proper Relevant Entity of the Script.”

Just for the hell of it, Erick asked, “And what if I gave my Blessing to Lapis and Fallopolis? Would they, too, be allowed to live?”

He felt Lapis and Fallopolis look at him, even though they didn’t take their white eyes off of Tania.

“Oh? No no no.” Tania said, “They’re dead.” She stood straighter, as if she had remembered that she left on the stove at home. “Ah. This one has to die, too. Can’t forget him!” She pointed down and to the east. A spot of light and shadow spilled from her hand, radiating as much magic as the Red Dot, before flitting down through the sky like a dangerous, impossibly fast snowflake.

The coruscating dot touched the center of the Garden. The plateau of wooded, green space, just north of the Spire, became a sphere of flickering shadows and brilliant light, ten kilometers across. Shockwaves pulsed the sky. The spell took ten seconds to end. When it was done, Treant’s Garden was gone, reduced to molten slag that spilled over the edges of crystal pillars like melted candle wax.

Up above, another illusionary world vanished. Only four were left.

“Treant was always way too passive.” Tania shook her head. “Not a good look for the future of My God.” She raised a flat palm toward Lapis. “I am SO GLAD I saved the humans for last. One final treat! Three final murders! A culmination of all my time in this city!” Light gathered in her hand.

Lapis almost flinched. She almost ran. But then she stopped herself. She stared up at Tania, and waited with her eyes wide, and her shoulders squared, facing her end head-on. She said nothing. She stood strong.

The light in Tania’s hand faltered. She frowned. “What is it? You’re taking this way too calmly.”

Lapis said, “If Melemizargo decrees it, then I must die. It was foolish of me to expect otherwise.”

“… No.” Tania said, “That’s not it. You have something else prepared.” She smirked. She said, “Let me guess. You have a backup-soul somewhere? Is that it? I’ll just find and kill that one, too, but besides that! A copy isn’t even you! What a stupid backup plan. I thought you were better than that, Lapis.”

Lapis’s breath hitched.

“And besides even that! You’re a worse actor than I am. Should have panicked properly, then I never would have known.” Tania twisted her hand, and the light in her palm turned into a shimmering, invisible force. “This here is [Chaining Soul Destruction], stolen from my time watching Quilatalap. Thanks for telling me I needed to use it.”

Tania fired her spell before she finished speaking. A pulse of divinely-empowered soul magic struck Lapis, touching her core, ripping her apart from the inside, turning her body to ash. The spell reconstituted from the leftovers half a second later and shot off to the far west to disappear into the crystals towers near the southwest wall of Ar’Kendrithyst.

Tania made a spectacle of watching the spell go, saying, “Look at that thing move!”

Fallopolis said, “Such a shame. I kinda liked her, there at the end. Very honorable way to die.”

Tania turned to Fallapolis. “Her copy isn’t her, old woman.”

“Exactly. Which is why it was honorable for her to meet her end like that.” Fallopolis asked, “So? What are you waiting for? Kill me already. I won’t be giving up quite like Lapis, so watch out for the counter attack.”

Erick interrupted Tania’s answer, demanding to know, “Why would you lie about letting Hollowsaur go? Or not killing me?”

“… Ah.” Tania nodded. “So yeah. You’re going to die, too… I might as well just tell you: The reason is your Stats. They’re going away, and I can’t let you live with them. Can’t let those get out into the rest of the world. You could call your death a side-Quest.” She brightened, as she said, “But you’re not the only side-Quest. When I’m finally done with all of you stragglers, I’m killing every single person in this place, along with destroying every magical item, and then gathering every soul to myself, to ensure none of the riches of this land fall into anyone’s hands but my own. Towers to rubble! Rubble to sand! Can’t leave anything to chance, and we especially can’t leave behind the cultures we’ve created in the Brightwater. That’s a bomb just waiting to go off. Those people down there will do more harm to Melemizargo’s return than anything else I could do.” Tania said, “Even more harm than will happen after tonight is over, when I kill every human in this world. My people will strut about for centuries, politicking about how much ‘evil’ I do in the coming months, but they’ll still be alive to strut, and that’s good enough for me.”

“Terrible.” Fallopolis said, “Bad gloating. Bad master plan. You fucked up, because you spoke about it before the end, just like how you fucked up with waking and taunting Jane before we managed to complete the Rite of Ascension with Yetta.”

Tania frowned. She almost spoke to defend herself—

“After all I tried to teach you! After all the guidance I tried to give you!” Fallopolis spoke louder, “Don’t you lie to me, young lady! Not at the end! Not about My God’s Plan! You fucked up then, and you’re fucking up now.” She spat, “None of the real players on this stage are dead yet, for Melemizargo’s Sake! And you give in to the main hero’s taunt and then you reveal your master plan? WHAT SORT OF FOOL ARE YOU?!”

“Yeah… Well? Your opinion doesn’t matter to me.” Tania’s left arm bulged and then briefly turned to black gore before it reformed into two pristine, violet-skinned arms. Her right arm did the same, splashing dark blood into the air, as her dark leathers snapped away like broken shadows. Her entire body flexed out into that of a giant, furry-white shadow spider; an illusion removed, revealing the true kilometers-wide monster underneath. Her [Avatar of Melemizargo]. Fangs gnashed and venom flowed, as shadows and countless smaller spiders appeared and spread through the battlefield, preparing to strike from Tania’s domain of webbing and power. Her transformation took two seconds. The enormous white spider snapped, “Time to die, and to let me fulfill the promise of your name, Fallopolis!”

“The only one destroying this city is me, you lackey!” Fallopolis reacted by transforming into her eldritch abomination form; a mass of shadows and teeth and eyes and abyss, larger than her brief reveal before, and then suddenly becoming larger than Erick would have ever guessed. Where she ended and the shadow web around them began, Erick could not tell. Smaller spiders were already dying as fanged shadows bit and ripped at all of Tania and her brood at once.

They clashed. The world shook under their power. Erick was back up to all his cooldowns, but that didn’t matter.

Ophiels erected defenses but popped anyway, as shockwaves and shadows and gnashing teeth and spider threads similar to Erick’s [Hermetic Shredder] sundered and severed sky. Erick spent his global cooldown on a [Withering Slime], cast into the sky as the force of the battle brushed him aside like a child’s toy. He cast that spell in order to kill all the spiders Tania had summoned, to help Fallopolis, but his assistance didn’t last long. A casual [Dispel] from one of the many combatants dispersed Erick’s attempt at war, and then another clash of power cracked through Erick’s sunform, breaking him like an egg.