Reyana had only heartbeats to spare before the weapon would drop on her like divine judgment.

  Nourma was closer to critical health. She knew it with the same certainty she knew how to breathe in combat.

  Just a little more. I need just a little more damage! Reyana clenched her teeth.

  Ten seconds. Maybe less.

  But if she survived them.

  Her aura surged hard enough to bruise her soul, shadows responding in a violent rush as the floor beneath her softened and gave way, swallowing her whole as she fell through it rather than breaking through.

  What unsettled her was not the descent.

  It was Nourma’s eyes.

  The underlord stood unmoving above her; its hollow sockets were now burning with dark flames. Nourma did not follow, nor did it attack. It only watched her fall as though it already knew where she would land.

  Just as she passed through into the sixteenth floor, Nourma’s weapon, encased in roiling dark flames, touched down on the seventeenth floor.

  BOOM!

  The entirety of the seventeenth floor and everything above detonated in an earth-shaking blast.

  The shockwave punched through shadow-space, tearing at her aura and rattling her bones as chunks of building vanished in an expanding storm of pulverized stone and screaming metal.

  Reyana gasped as pain bloomed along her back.

  She forced more power into the shadows, as her mind strained against her control, the familiar narrowing setting in as death crowded out everything else.

  Her control over other elements was significantly weaker with her Mantle unleashed… death consumed everything, including her own versatility.

  “Hold,” she growled, voice torn from her chest as she imposed her will on the darkness before it could shred itself apart.

  She fell through the sixteenth floor. Then the fifteenth.

  Her intuition proved horrifyingly correct as Nourma's weapon continued falling downward like the wrath of an angry god. It blasted through floor after floor in relentless pursuit.

  Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve.

  Six floors down now, and she was absolutely certain the damn thing was tracking her specifically.

  “Jin!” Reyana shouted into the whisperlink, “We cannot hold any longer! Where are you?”

  Only the silence answered her.

  Her jaw tightened.

  Damn you, Jin!

  She crashed onto the tenth floor, boots shattering concrete as she hit, shadows splitting away beneath her. She rolled once, came up in a crouch, and drove aura and essence into her longsword.

  Motes of light gathered along the edge in escalating layers that burned from pale to searing white as she awaited the weapon’s descent.

  This would hurt. It would leave her empty.

  But there was nothing else left… it was her only option.

  Reyana breathed in once, slow and deliberate, centering herself as the cracks ran like a spiderweb in the ceiling, and it exploded.

  Debris rained down as the sledgehammer emerged through the ruin, bone-white surface streaked with dark flame, falling straight for her.

  Reyana began her swing, and she paused… sensing a familiar presence on the eleventh floor directly above.

  “No,” she breathed. “Rudy, you did not...”

  With a roar that carried every ounce of defiant stubbornness bred into his bones, Rudy grabbed onto the falling sledgehammer's shaft mid-descent.

  White flames exploded around his form. His Mantle Heart pulsed like a war drum. His muscles bulged, and he spun… using the weapon's own momentum against it and launched the sledgehammer screaming back upward, tearing through the ruined floors it had created, obliterating what little remained above as it vanished from sight.

  The force of Rudy’s actions sent him spiraling down through the air.

  “Rudy!” Reyana moved, shadow-stepping into his path and slamming into him midair, shadows coiling around both of them as they hit the tenth floor in a rolling crash of limbs and breathless curses.

  They skidded across broken concrete until they struck a support pillar hard.

  Rudy laughed, breathless and wild. “My arms did not break this time!”

  “You are an idiot,” Reyana snapped, the words sharp but the relief bleeding through anyway. “My everything hurts!”

  “You should focus more on defense and vitality!” He grinned, blood trailing from his nose. “Besides, I am improving.”

  She shook her head and pushed herself up, pain making itself known all at once. “Jin.”

  Nothing.

  "He's not answering?" Rudy asked with a knowing look.

  "No," Reyana said. "You know something I don't?"

  "All I know is when that happens, Jin's probably pulling off something very stupid but also very finishing-move-esque." Rudy grinned with blood leaking from his nose. "He goes all broody and silent when he does this. Gets real dramatic about it."

  "Great," Reyana muttered. "What is he, a middle schooler?"

  Before either of them could get another word out, Nourma crashed through the floors above like a falling star.

  Its sledgehammer connected with the floor, and reality folded around it. The shockwave punched outward in a violent ring, snapping support beams like matchsticks and turning walls into flying debris.

  The tenth floor didn’t collapse so much as detonate, exploding outward in a storm of concrete, steel, and pulverized dust.

  The ground vanished under Reyana’s feet, and suddenly she was airborne, weightless for a heartbeat before the gravity caught up.

  Shards of the floor tore past, beams screamed as they twisted apart. Reyana and Rudy slammed through a cloud of dust and splintered masonry.

  Pain bloomed along Reyana’s ribs as she bounced hard off something that might once have been a wall. The pain jolted her awake as she blinked through shadows toward Nourma, her longsword already moving for a strike in silence.

  “Face me!” Rudy roared, voice carrying raw challenge as he triggered [Warrior’s Call], power ripping through him midair. He struck debris from the air, fists and feet turning falling stone into a barrage that thundered toward Nourma in violent succession.

  The underlord raised its aura, dark flames surging outward to intercept the barrage, a crude shield formed of instinct rather than thought.

  That moment was all Reyana needed.

  Six Reyanas stepped into existence around Nourma, each one real enough to cast a shadow, each blade humming with overcharged essence spiraling in opposing helixes.

  They struck together.

  Six blades buried themselves into Nourma’s body from six directions, steel biting deep as white vines erupted from the wounds, thorns wrapping and crushing, locking the underlord in place.

  “Rwrrrh!” Nourma snarled and broke through the [Warrior’s call] compulsion through sheer willpower.

  Nourma shifted immediately, bringing his weapon around in a devastating horizontal swing aimed directly at Reyana's actual form… the one whose blade was buried deepest in its stomach.

  She didn’t respond and held her ground, pushing deeper and deeper into Nourma. Just as the weapon reached her, she muttered softly, "Shift."

  Reality flickered, and she swapped positions with one of her shadow clones.

  The sledgehammer passed through empty shadow, dissipating the clone in a burst of dark essence. The shockwave from the swing blasted outward, taking out the entire western side of the building.

  "Jin, the building won't be able to take much more of this!" Reyana shouted telepathically into the whisperlink while her blade came around in a high overhead arc.

  No response from Jin.

  Fine, I'll finish this myself.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Her blade came down with everything she had left.

  Death aura surged out from her heart in a raging storm, flooding her being. Accelerating both her attack and her own deterioration in equal measure.

  The sword took on a frigid white sheen. A biting white frost crawled along the edge and bled into her hands. The air screamed as she brought it down.

  The sword sheared through Nourma’s shoulder.

  It did not stop.

  The arm came free with a wet, tearing sound.

  For half a heartbeat, there was silence.

  Then Nourma growled.

  The sound rolled out of him low and deep. It vibrated in her chest, crawled up her spine, and prickled her skin with cold dread.

  Her hands moved in complex hand signs as she cast a spell, but just as she was about to finish, dark flames erupted from Nourma’s body, rippling out in waves.

  The blaze tore through the area, incinerating every shadow clone in an instant. Reyana felt her access to the shadow-space severed.

  The flames consumed the darkness she needed to use her spells.

  In the same breath, Nourma spun.

  His remaining arm brought the bone sledgehammer around in a wide swing that had all his remaining strength behind it.

  Reyana's shadows were gone. No way to dodge. No way to retreat into darkness.

  She bit down hard and moved her sword to guard… knowing it wouldn't be enough but trying anyway because what else could she do?

  BOOM.

  The impact hit like the world exploding. Her sword arm shattered as she flew through the air like a broken star, trailing pain and blood.

  Rudy leaped and managed to catch her. They tumbled together as they fell through the massive hole now occupying most of the building's center.

  Rudy struggled to grab onto pieces of the remaining floor structure, fingers scrabbling for purchase on bent rebar and crumbling concrete.

  But nothing worked.

  They fell toward the lower floors.

  Reyana transferred her sword to her off-hand through sheer stubborn will and raised her ruined arm to call shadows.

  Nothing came apart from pain. Her Mantle was taking its toll, eating her from the inside.

  They crashed multiple times into the debris and landed hard on what might have been the eighth floor or the seventh; it was hard to tell when everything was rubble.

  Reyana took shallow breaths as she fumbled for a health potion, tipping the glowing liquid down her throat.

  An intense rush of lifeforce and healing surged through her, reawakening the agony of pain as her body mended.

  As her vision focused, she saw Rudy moving in front of her with a shield raised.

  Her gaze traveled past him and saw Nourma falling after them… one-armed, but still coming.

  Nourma’s remaining arm cocked back as it fell. With a roar that shook reality, it threw its weapon straight at them.

  The sledgehammer rocketed downward like a meteor.

  Reyana looked at Rudy and saw determination carved into every line of his young face.

  He would deal with this, which she was sure of after spending so much time with him.

  If only Jin were as simple as you!

  She clenched her teeth and reached into her shadows one more time, commanding failing will onto the rebellious darkness. The shadows rose sluggishly and covered a portion of both their bodies.

  Rudy roared, and white flames exploded around him. His skin turned fully ashen in an instant. The blurry figure of a massive colossus manifested behind him… a giant's silhouette burning with pale fire.

  The thrown weapon connected with his shield.

  BOOM.

  Reyana didn't wait to see the result. She pulled and yanked both herself and Rudy into the thin shadows she'd managed to gather and let the explosion's force throw them through shadow-space.

  Reyana's voice came out cold as winter's heart: "Bloom."

  She put everything remaining into the technique… every drop of essence, every scrap of death aura, the last dregs of her Mantle's power before it turned on her completely.

  The spectral lotus manifested beneath Nourma in full glory. All fourteen petals opened simultaneously, and the pillar of muted white light erupted to consume its form.

  The beam punched upward through what remained of the building, reducing everything it touched to ash and dust.

  The moment Rudy and Reyana tumbled out of shadow-space, they frowned in confusion.

  They weren't in the building anymore.

  They stood on a street several blocks away, looking up at the darkened red sky under the Veil.

  "I activated your emergency extraction marks," Jin's voice buzzed through the whisperlink. "Leave the rest to me."

  The line went dead.

  So did Reyana's vision… exhaustion and Mantle backlash finally claiming their due.

  Just before darkness took her, she heard the loudest explosion she'd ever experienced, and saw light bright enough to create a second sun in Vienna's darkened streets.

  ???

  Nourma was no longer holding together.

  Half its body had collapsed into ruin from all the afflictions and damage it had received. His regenerative capabilities, which had sustained him, kept him away from his beastly nature had fallen behind.

  His eyes burned anyway.

  There was no strategy left in them. Only fixation, stripped raw and naked, the last thing left once thought had been beaten out of him.

  "MORE." The word dragged itself free of his throat, torn and ugly. "MORE BLOOD. MORE DEATH. MORE—"

  Just hunger. Just rage. Just the beast beneath civilization's veneer.

  Whatever had once been Nourma had stopped pretending to be a warrior.

  "??????L???L???O???W???..."

  Nourma's body convulsed.

  His body seized as if struck by lightning, muscles spasming hard enough to pull bone out of alignment. Flesh rippled under the skin in violent waves, tendons standing out as something beneath them forced its way forward.

  Nourma’s frame grew.

  Six feet gave way to seven. Seven stretched into eight as joints restructured with audible cracks, the spine bowing and its posture collapsing into something lower, wider, more like an animal.

  The bone weapon did not drop from his grasp. It sank inside its new body, fusing together.

  Empty eye sockets searched for enemies to destroy, and they found nothing.

  The roar that followed shook the remains of the structure down to its bones. Cracks and fractures raced through the structure, glass shattering outward across streets and alleys as the Veil overhead rippled in response, its crimson haze pulsing as if disturbed by the sound alone.

  Power gathered inside the creature, compressing inward as everything Nourma had endured collapsed toward a single point.

  D????E????A????T????H??? ?C????L???A???I????M????S???? ??? A????L????L???!!!

  It released everything in one cataclysmic burst.

  The explosion tore outward in a sphere that should have erased blocks of the city, a detonation violent enough to flatten streets and grind foundations into dust.

  Should have.

  Instead, something impossible happened.

  The expanding force reversed direction, drawn inward as if reality itself had been seized and yanked backward, energy collapsing toward the epicenter rather than escaping it.

  The power did not vanish. It was caught, siphoned, and locked into an array of talismans and crystal arrays embedded throughout the ruins.

  Each formation ignited in harsh gold, not the warmth of sunlight but the sharp, biting brilliance of lightning held in place by sheer intent. The light seared through Nourma's flesh.

  The roar that followed was different.

  It still carried fury, but pain had forced its way in beside it, raw and undeniable.

  The talismans answered.

  ???

  Jin stood on the fifth floor, the last level of the structure that survived, and watched gold light race through the formation he had carved into walls, floors, and ceiling with his own hands.

  The ritual was complete.

  Talismans anchored every load-bearing surface. Crystals sat in precise alignment, humming as they drank in power. Runes burned steadily now, no longer needing correction or reinforcement, fed by essence pulled directly from Jin’s reserves until his Mantle Heart throbbed with a dull, persistent ache that would not fade for days.

  ? Your essence output is spiking. ?

  Jin did not look away. “Good.”

  ? This level of sustained draw will leave residue. ?

  He flexed his fingers once, feeling the pull bite deeper. “That is the point.”

  ? Then, I'll leave it you to finish this. ?

  “Thanks.”

  He lifted his hands.

  The formation answered.

  He raised both hands, and the ritual responded to his will.

  Power rose to meet him, lifting him cleanly from the floor as essence flowed in layered currents around his body, dense enough to be seen with the naked eye. Jin ascended through the open spine of the ruined building, drifting upward toward the center of the array where Nourma writhed, bound in interlocked chains of gold and silver.

  The underlord turned.

  Whatever remained of its gaze fixed on Jin, and the sound it made scraped free of a ruined throat, stripped of inflection and intent alike. “Mortal.”

  Jin met it without breaking stride. “That is a temporary condition.”

  Iron Howl and Essence Edge formed in his hands. The weapon’s presence was heavy and eager, echoing with the ritual.

  Jin spread his hands, slow and deliberate, movements measured like an orchestra conductor setting tempo. Each gesture left golden script hanging in the air, symbols carving themselves into reality before locking into place, circles forming and beginning to orbit him in layered planes that rotated at different speeds, patient and inevitable.

  “Power,” Jin said, his voice carrying through the structure as the formation caught it and gave it weight. “It's a very fickle thing. Ever since I woke up in this world, I’ve been chasing it with both hands, scrambling for scraps, never realizing I already had the means all along.”

  The circles turned.

  “I’m not a fighter like Rudy,” he went on, gaze steady as Nourma strained against the chains. “And I’m not an assassin like Reyana. I might become a mage like Joe, but no matter how long I live, no matter how much I train, I will never wear their strengths the way they do.”

  He lifted one hand, fingers closing slowly, as if grasping something only he could see.

  “And then I remembered.”

  The word settled into the air, heavy.

  “This is not my first life,” Jin said. “I died because the world decided my story had reached a convenient end.”

  The formation hummed louder, gold light tightening its orbit.

  Jin’s mouth curved, he lowered his hand, and the circles responded, locking into place.

  “I do not win by strength,” Jin said. “I win by preparation. By memory. By refusing to play the role that was written for me.”

  He looked directly at Nourma’s core.

  “I am not chosen. I am not destined. I am not inevitable.”

  A pause.

  “I am simply the one who decides my fate.”

  The rotation of the circles sped up, hum deepening as energy fed into the array.

  When Jin spoke again, his voice layered over itself, harmonics stacking until each word carried weight beyond sound.

  "From death's harvest, knowledge grows."

  "From blood spilled, power flows."

  "From flesh unmade, the working shows."

  "What was stolen, now I own."

  Nourma strained against the chains, dark fire bursting from its body, trying to fight through as a new chain manifested like a snake piercing deep into Nourma’s chest, and the flames vanished.

  It let out another roar.

  Jin drew more power through the formation, and his eyes glowed silver like the endless stars in a night sky.

  "I name thee fallen, though thou stand."

  "I mark thee ended, though thou breathe."

  "I count thy sins with bloodied hand."

  "And bid thee rest in tomb beneath."

  Talismans ignited throughout the building in a cascade, each activation feeding the core array, each pulse tightening the chains until gold burned white-hot against corrupted flesh.

  Nourma’s voice broke.

  Fear forced its way into the sound, raw and animal.

  With a deep breath, Jin leveled the weapon at the nexus where divinity and artificial life had been fused together, the same flaw that existed in Vellakin.

  His finger tightened.

  "By death's dominion, claim thy rest."

  "By void's embrace, be dispossessed."

  "By chains of fate, be manifest."

  "As dust and ash and nothing blessed."

  He fired.

  The projectile was not metal so much as intent, every formation and binding compressed into a single moment through [Spellshot Synthesis] into a single, absolute moment. It struck Nourma’s core and detonated.

  Nourma’s roar cut off mid-breath.

  Silence followed, complete and perfect.

  Then the formation finished its work.

  Every talisman discharged.

  Every crystal is emptied.

  Every fragment of captured force released in flawless synchronization as the structure folded inward, walls and floors collapsing toward the center where Nourma hung bound in gold.

  The chained underlord tried to roar one final time.

  No sound emerged. Just light… blinding, searing, pure and absolute.

  Jin spoke one last time, his voice settling over the collapse like a seal pressed into wax.

  “What was monster, now is memory.”

  “What was threat, now is tomb.”

  “What was feared, now is buried.”

  “Dust to dust, ash to ash, rest in eternal gloom.”

  The light reached critical mass.

  Reality tore as it failed to accommodate the demand placed upon it, and everything within the formation went white with the force of a sun being born.

  “Take me away,” Jin said.

  ? Acknowledged. Helldiver’s Mark engaged. ?

  Space inverted around him, color and direction folding as he vanished clear of the blast, the explosion behind him lighting the city like a second dawn.

  ~~~

  PS: Psst~ Psst~ Advanced chapters are already up on patreon. It would be awesome if you guys, you know...

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