Rafael watched Vivisari rip apart a Cataclysm-level threat like it was some insect she found crawling around on the ground.

Nineteen hundred and fifty. He could read the creature’s level; they all could. The Grand System was freely handing out approximations to even those who should have failed a regular [Inspection].

Seeing a person so casually end an extinction-level monster was sobering in its own right, even for a man as aware of what the pinnacles of power looked like as he. The expression on Vivisari’s face, though? The fascination shining in her eyes, the gruesome satisfaction she took in tearing open her opponent?

Despite having total confidence in the moral character of this woman who could erase Meridian with a spell, Rafael felt a shiver go down his spine, and a clenching in his guts. Fear for what Vivisari could be, if she chose to be.

Or, more importantly, if the world shaped her that way.

She had definitely grown stronger in her time away. Much stronger. Could even the Dragon King or other mythical immortals face her, now? Had she somehow reached the very top of that seemingly infinite mountain, like the greatest of Cataclysm Monarchs that had died to her own hand? Or had she gone further? Surpassed the limit he, and all others, thought a summit? It seemed almost obvious that she must have, considering the ease with which she’d bested the [Greater Voidbeast].

In a way, this overwhelming display of power simplified whatever events would follow. At least regarding Vanguard and Vivisari’s return. Because people would not assume the Sorceress for the events transpiring. They would assume a god. That the heavens themselves had descended to aid in this battle of otherworldly origin. Vivisari was a legend, yes, but even she couldn’t rip a Cataclysm in half with such casual disrespect.

The brief excitement touching her face faded into that look of perpetual boredom. She glanced at Rafael, nodded at him, then [Blinked] away.

Rafael stared at the empty spot she’d been occupying, then shook himself and, putting the harrowing display out of mind, focused on his own mission.

He frowned down at one of the wealthiest and most influential humans in the world. A man he had worked with on many occasions. Duke Caldimore had captained the most collectively powerful guild in the Human Kingdoms, and Rafael the Adventurer’s Guild. So of course they had spoken often. He’d always had a mildly positive view of Duke Caldimore, if he set aside the man’s pride. How shameful a lapse of judgment, in retrospect.

Had he recognized latent trauma in the Duke, no doubt borne of those many tragedies he’d faced? Of course. All men had been burned by the Cataclysms and carried scars from those days. Archmage Aeris, with whom Rafael also met on occasion, displayed those concerning indicators far more clearly. Between the two—the Duke and the Archmage—Rafael would honestly have expected the latter to break in this particular way. To turn on humanity, by accident or not, in desperation.

Though was that what had happened? Or was it greed? Ambition? Something else entirely? Rafael was unsure. The Duke’s motives remained unclear. Rafael hoped he had not read the man that poorly. His blindness to this plot had already failed Lady Vivisari. But for him to so fundamentally misunderstand the Duke’s nature would triple his already substantial shame.

Though Duke Caldimore’s views were no doubt misguided, Rafael didn’t believe, even with the man’s folly playing out around them, that his goal had been indiscriminate ruin. That he was some monster like Lucorius, seeking power at the uncaring expense of all others. This man had had a greater purpose in mind, and probably one that could be presented as a net positive to the world.

Likely, it was related to that dagger Vivisari had mentioned. A weapon that had pressed even his Lady. Considering her newfound strength, the magic-negating material must be fearsome beyond imagination.

Simple logic told him that the blade had been forged from the carapace of those creatures below. Perhaps Damon had intended to harvest them and create similar weapons in great numbers? Rafael had to admit, equipping mere foot soldiers with blades that could slice through a Titled-rank monster would do unimaginable good for the world.

But why not take his findings to a qualified council? Instead, he’d gone to Morningstar. Worked in secret. No, his motives had been nefarious or selfish in some way. Rafael needed to accept his failure; the Duke was not the man he had assumed.

The human was stirring awake, Vivisari’s healing spell finally prompting him to consciousness. Winston stepped to the man’s side, rapier sheathed, but hand on the hilt. Rafael would admit that the butler’s presence relaxed him. The Duke was only orichalcum, but the difference between that and Titled meant little to Rafael. He had artifacts, scrolls, and potions to defend himself, but in a struggle of life or death, he would not bet on himself against even a man of Duke Caldimore’s strength with total certainty. Power came foremost from levels, and Rafael had few of those. He had never been an adventurer.

The Duke jerked up, and neither Rafael nor Winston flinched at the abrupt motion. Winston, acting in direct service of his mistress, could challenge nearly all Titled across the mortal lands; Rafael had little to fear.

Besides that there would be little useful to mine from the man. Except where his daughter had gone, and the general shape of his schemes, which might not be much help at all. He doubted Damon knew how to seal the dimensional breach. Only the Fell Apostate would, if even he, and he was either gone or consumed with the ritual.

The man oriented himself to his surroundings, head snapping side to side as he took everything in, eyes slowly gaining lucidity. He looked at them in turn. Rafael. Winston. A glaring red-haired beastkin. Then down at the abyssal pit beneath the magical platform.

At armageddon itself. An endless stream of monsters pouring out and into Meridian’s streets, monsters which couldn’t even be [Inspected] properly, but which the Grand System provided a vague appraisal of nonetheless, each of the beasts ranging from Orichalcum to high-Titled.

‘High-Titled’? A comical understatement, for a few of the monstrosities emerging.

It was a lot for the man to digest, reasonably.

“Rafael…Headmaster…?” the Duke said, slurring his words. “What is…the meaning of this?”

Rafael could forgive the confusion, the automatic response that bordered on nonsensical. The situation was rather extreme, and the Duke had just been the victim of a ritual that had run wild. That he lived at all, without so much as mutating into some cursed, apocalyptic beast, was rather incredible. The heavens had smiled on him; many worse fates could have awaited him.

“I’m afraid we don’t have time for pleasantries, Damon,” Rafael said smoothly. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, your plans, whatever they may have been, have not quite lived up to your expectations. I hold out hope that you are not a total madman, and that before the entire capital is overrun with this insanity you’ve brought to us, you explain what you’ve done, what your plans were, and how we might mitigate this disaster.”

“Isabella,” Saffra demanded. “What did you do to her, you—you bastard?”

Rafael’s attention flicked to the Sorceress’s apprentice. An imperceptible frown tugged on his lips. It was hardly unreasonable that a thirteen-year-old girl would respond in such a way, especially one who was, apparently, friends with the Duke’s daughter herself. But Rafael was trying to navigate this conversation as quickly and efficiently as possible, and the outburst didn’t help.

The Duke’s attention jerked to the girl, and his eyes narrowed, the man’s pride never one to suffer an insult. He took a second to find a response, still struggling to understand everything that was happening, but a sneer pulled onto his face.

“Know your place, commoner brat. I could have you strung up for those words.” He made to rise, but a gloved white hand fell on his shoulder, pushing him down like an anvil. He hit the ground with jarring force.

“I would prefer that you stay as you are, Duke Caldimore,” the ever-polite butler suggested.

“Please let me handle this, young mistress,” Rafael told the girl. “I assure you that I will find out what I can, as quickly as I can.”

Saffra almost flinched at the words, and she pulled back—though kept glaring at the Duke.

The Duke’s attention had slid away from them, despite Winston’s manhandling, which should have prompted outrage. He gazed into the distance. This time to where the world’s most powerful mage—having draped herself in invisibility, appearing simply as an empty spot in the sky—was chaining eighteenth-tier or higher magics faster than Rafael could process, tearing apart high-Titled threats by the dozen and lighting the sky for miles around.

“Nysari,” the Duke murmured, his brow furrowed. He looked at Rafael, Vanguard’s steward. Then at Winston, Vivisari’s personal manservant. The more telling of the two individuals present, certainly. Though Winston had been more active in the years following the Turning, he was a private man, concerned predominantly with his Academy. “Vivisari.”

Rafael snorted. There was hardly a point in denying it. “Indeed. An identity I arranged for my lady’s personal use, with the permission of the Keresi family. I cannot say I am surprised it lasted a mere two days before falling apart. This is unimportant. You are an intelligent man, despite everything, Damon. I assume that you have grasped the implications of your failure. Your only hope for mercy stems from complete cooperation.”

“Mercy?” Saffra erupted, looking like she’d been slapped. “What mercy?”

A glance at the girl had her going quiet again, but this time she met his gaze angrily, fists clenched to her side.

Damon frowned at Rafael, ignoring Saffra’s outburst, and Rafael was pleased to see calculation churning behind his eyes. What Rafael absolutely didn’t need, right now, was a raving lunatic.

“This is the fault of Vivisari, not me,” the Duke spat. “The ritual was rushed. If not for her interference, this chaos never would have manifested.” He glanced over the ledge of the magical platform, face whitening at what he saw below, before turning defiantly back to Rafael.

“It is a rather unimportant hypothetical,” Rafael said mildly, finding the man’s words ridiculous, but understanding his desperate need for delusion, “considering where we find ourselves.”

The man fumed, deliberating over his next words. Again, Rafael found relief in that. He could shepherd the man to a desired location, could extract information, but only if Damon remained rational enough to engage on an intellectual level.

There was torture, but that was startlingly inefficient, and he doubted Vivisari would approve, even in this drastic a scenario. He disapproved of those interrogation techniques on principle too, of course, but if it were a city of lives or breaking a few fingers on a man who deserved it—well, suffice it to say, his morals were less unyielding than his Lady’s.

There was mind magic as well, but Vivisari would never approve, not even with a city at risk.

He hoped that was the case, at least. As far as Rafael was concerned, a miniature god let loose on the world with flexible morals would be worse than even the roaming Cataclysms of yore. To some degree, he saw Vivisari’s accidental killing of the Red Tithe as the worst event to occur today. He would much prefer Vivisari’s hands remain as uncompromisingly clean as the old days. The first kills, as the truism went, were the hardest. And he wanted Vivisari to find killing as difficult as possible, even when it came to monstrous men like the Red Tithe.

“I do not regret what I’ve done,” the Duke said coldly, and Rafael observed with great interest that the man’s flinty eyes and squared jaw promised absolute earnestness. “I knew of this possibility. But for once, I was the architect of my destiny. I decided; I failed. Me.” He grunted. “It was necessary, besides. Some great threat will come, Rafael. You know it, I know it, we all do. I sought a way to stand against whatever does. Preemptively. Only the least, and most foolish of men, rely on a…savior.”

His attention flicked to the invisible Sorceress. The world washed briefly white as a gigantic beam of lightning tore through one of the sleek, alien creatures. A very complicated series of expressions flashed across the Duke’s face. The man likely revered Vivisari, as most of humanity, and especially veterans of the Cataclysm wars, did. She was his savior. Everyone’s savior.

He tore his gaze away. “I did not believe she even lived,” he muttered. “That she does…it changes nothing. I would have acted the same.”

“The ritual, Damon. If you expect even a shred of leniency, explain. What were your goals? The broad shape, in any case? And more importantly, do you have any conception of how this might be contained?”

A sneer pulled back the man’s lip. “Of course I don’t. You knew that without asking; I am no ritualist. But I will escape ultimate consequences nevertheless, Guildmaster. With what I’ve created—a process I can replicate—and with what I know, I am too useful to be executed. I know how the world works. My value is too high alive, and nonexistent dead.”

The unfortunate reality was that the Duke might be correct. About ultimate consequences, in any case. His best hope was an imprisoned life as a disgraced pariah—but his usefulness might keep his head on his shoulders, if what he was saying was true. That wasn’t for him to worry about at this point. “The general shape of the ritual. Explain. And where is your daughter?”

The Duke mulled over his options. To Rafael’s relief, he reluctantly answered. “I know little of the implementation; again, I am no ritualist. It was fueled by the name of the Wardens, and all the wealth within, as the primary sacrifice. The designing mage—”

“The Fell Apostate.”

He paused in surprise, and irritation flashed on his face, which confirmed Rafael’s guess. “The designing mage insisted that to reach beyond the dimensional veil, a soul must be used as a breaching projectile to create an opening—or so was the comparison he drew. Nothing else would have the conceptual weight. My daughter met the criteria.”

“Where is she?” Rafael asked, pushing back the disgust he felt. No, he had not fully misjudged the man—the cool rationality the Duke maintained even now fit the image Rafael had always held—but clearly there was a monster underneath too.

How was there so little concern in his voice? He didn’t even sound vindictive, or hateful: simply callously unworried about his daughter’s fate.

“Presumably, beyond the barrier,” Damon said. “At least she served some useful purpose to her family, prior to her expiration.”

A prickling on the back of Rafael’s neck alerted him to a sudden influx of mana. A scroll had been burned…and by the name the Sorceress’s apprentice spoke behind him, he knew what was about to happen before he turned.

The blunt end of a wooden staff lunged forward and crashed into Duke Caldimore’s face. The man’s nose broke with a crunch, head whipping back. A follow-up swing slammed into his side, breaking several ribs, or so Rafael assumed by the gruesome noise. It was only when the length of wood came cleaving down in an overhead blow that Winston caught the weapon with a heavy thud that had wind gusting in all directions.

The butler pushed the struggling girl backwards.

“Please, calm yourself, young lady.”

“She’s your daughter,” Saffra screamed past him. “What’s wrong with you?”

Rafael suppressed an enormous sigh. Again, he agreed on principle with the outrage—of course he did. But dealing with a time-sensitive disaster surrounded by such emotional actors pained him on a fundamental level. She wasn’t helping. Couldn’t she see that? Any delay in this conversation was harming their chances of saving Isabella Caldimore, not helping.

If the girl had lived at all, which, unfortunately, Rafael thought quite unlikely.

Perhaps something was broken inside him. Perhaps he should be raging the same as his allies, logic notwithstanding. Winston himself had obviously lost his composure too. He could have caught the first blow, much less the second and third, regardless of the scroll the girl had burned. The man had wanted to see the Duke punished, no matter how impassive he kept his face, and so he had allowed, consciously or subconsciously, the young woman to vent her frustration on his behalf.

Rafael withdrew a healing potion and bent down to feed it to the Duke. Further scuffling ensued, the butler controlling the girl who was suddenly wielding Titled-rank strength. This was why he’d almost advised Vivisari against the idea entirely. Children had no place carrying around scrolls of such incredible power.

“So you know of no way to close the gate? Not even a guess?” he asked in confirmation. With how distracted the Duke had no doubt gotten by having his face smashed in, Rafael bluntly reiterated the point that he was certain would have the highest chance of convincing the man quickly. “Any information given now that mitigates this disaster will have the powers that be look on you more forgivingly, no matter how much immunity you believe you have through usefulness. Your knowledge of this…void material, and where it comes from.”

Before Damon could respond, a voice spoke from Rafael’s side, startling him. Not that he showed it; he calmly glanced over his shoulder.

“It’s fine,” Vivisari said. “We don’t need him. I’ve finished studying the breach. It’s healing on its own. That holds with what I saw at Prismarche—the dimensional boundary is resilient and self-repairing. Already, they’re coming out slower. See?”

Even as she was speaking, she was casting spells and clearing away monsters with magic of such high tiers that Rafael tasted blood just looking at them too closely. Spells that made him feel like a very small man indeed, and he had spent many years surrounded by powerful individuals.

Ignoring that primal fear, he saw that she was right: there were fewer monsters coming out. Not that he found it comforting that Titled-rank threats were spewing out into the heart of Meridian merely by the handful rather than the dozen.

“I’m certain the wound is scabbing, so to speak,” she went on. “It’ll resolve itself eventually. We just need to hold the hordes off until then. Speaking of, I should return—I was just updating you.”

Without waiting for a response, she [Blinked] away.

Rafael stared briefly at the empty air, then turned back to Damon. He raised an eyebrow. “Your self-proclaimed value is rapidly diminishing, if the Sorceress believes she has no need of you.”

Damon met his gaze evenly, unworried. “She does. The world does. I was unaware that voidglass originated from these…creatures…but it is logical in retrospect. I understand, now, why the material is useless raw. The monsters give it life, somehow. But it needs reactivation. Else it is little more than a very sharp and very durable metal. More importantly, I know how to bend it to my will. Force it to respond to one’s class and skills. Emit a short-range aura of immunity, and thus serve as functional armor. More. The knowledge I carry is too valuable to rid yourself of.”

Despite the words, Damon’s frustration and worry were plain. He was not so confident as he presented.

“You did not make these discoveries yourself,” Rafael observed mildly. “You are no great inventor, of the arcane or otherwise.”

Damon grimaced. “Another organization knows many of the same secrets, yes. But not all. I have worked with several great minds over the years. Some more and some less aware of what I hired them for. I alone know everything.”

More had slipped under Rafael’s nose than he had feared. Then again, no information network could infiltrate personal dealings with a Duke very carefully covering his tracks. Or the highest echelons of Morningstar. Rafael couldn’t truly be faulted…but he blamed himself regardless. It would be unseemly otherwise. He was Vanguard’s eyes and ears in the world of politicking and scheming, and he had been deaf and blind in this crucial regard.

Morningstar had been Duke Caldimore’s primary contact through the decades. That was unfortunate. Vivisari seemed to have found a way past the material, but most people were not Vivisari. That particular group having access to weapons and armor so dangerous was…far from ideal.

Damon Caldimore’s knowledge really might be too invaluable to allow for his execution. While Vivisari might be able to rip the information out of his head, she never would on a moral level. Even if she was somehow willing, the Duke no doubt had safeguards in place. He was an intelligent man, in spite of this madness that he’d hidden for so long. Rafael fully expected the Duke’s retort to a threat of such nature to be, ‘try it, and watch the knowledge be erased forever.’ That was what Rafael would have done. Arranged for an effect to wipe his mind the instant it was invaded.

So. Some of the major players would be ultimate pragmatists and forgive the man’s actions, so long as he aided them going forward, considering this Eighth Cataclysm lurking beyond the dimensional boundary. And this material which he might be able to work into weapons and armor that could empower even a mere high-Titled into threats capable of forcing the Sorceress to struggle, however slightly.

But some would call for his head regardless. Vivisari perhaps among them. Conflict would ensue. Cascading complications. The brewing storm made his head ache. Perhaps he should kill the man now, and end the conflict before it began.

But no. It wasn’t his decision to make.

His eyes drifted toward Vivisari. The worst part was that she would be needed in the coming days, yet he had a strong suspicion of what the Sorceress had planned, learning that Isabella Caldimore, a thirteen-year-old victim of a deranged father, was on the other side of that dimensional fracture, most likely dead, but perhaps alive. Anyone could make that guess. They hadn’t been called the Party of Heroes without reason.

There was never such a thing, to that woman and her prior party members, as a lost cause.