Noah had been… dreaming. He wasn’t actually sure that there was any word that could have been properly used to describe the strange sensation of floating between life and death, but that one seemed to be the closest he could come up with.

He hadn’t quite died from the attack that had torn out his heart — but he certainly hadn’t lived through it either. His soul had been midway through detaching from his body and ferrying itself on to the next when the bands of a shadowy cage had trapped him within his own not-quite-corpse.

There he had lingered, a thick haze obscuring his thoughts and muddling the visions flashing through eyes that should have been his. The fight against Father had raged on even after he’d fallen into this pit. But Noah wasn’t the only one here.

Noah-2 stood alongside him. Neither of them said a word. Their attention was completely focused on the distant visions filtering through their mind from the outside world. The only reason neither of them were trying to break themselves free was that Noah-3 seemed to be doing a considerably better job than either of them would have been able to.

And that still hadn’t been enough.

The final vision lingered in the air before both of them.

A broken sky.

A warped world.

A dead Noah.

In a few moments, the end of everything.

A noose was already binding around his neck. It seemed Noah-3’s time in the outside world had run its course. The magic of his gourd was calling the original back home, devoid of magic, just in time for Father to wipe everyone out — or for the Night’s Shadow to turn the world to screaming stone.

“Well,” Noah-2 said. “This sucks.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Noah said quietly. “What the fuck do I do?”

“You think I know? I’m you.”

“That’s why I’m asking you,” Noah said. “I’m out of ideas. The Formation is gone. For a good use, I’ll admit, but it’s not enough. He’s too strong.”

“Not just him. The Long Night is ridiculously powerful,” Noah-2 said. “Father doesn’t have Order magic himself. He’s using the stick. I’d tell you to find a way to separate them… but there’s no way to even get close.”

“The Long Night,” Noah muttered. His lips thinned.

The noose of energy binding around Noah’s neck grew tighter. He couldn’t resist it for much longer. And even if he wanted to — that would have just cost more time. Time that he didn’t have to waste.

It doesn’t matter if I’ve got access to my magic or not. I have to get that damn staff away from him.

***

A wave of force hammered into Brayden with such force that it tore his sword right from his hands and sent him tumbling across the ground in a spray of dirt. Something hard cracked against his head. The world spun —

He threw himself to the side, moving on more instinct than intention, and scrambled to his feet, breathing heavily.

But no attack passed through the air where he was or where he’d been.

Janice was pushing herself upright several feet away from him, looking just as haggard as he felt. She swayed unsteadily. Her eyes shifted in and out of focus as her gaze found Brayden. But he barely even noticed Janice.

It was hard to when the world seemed to be coming to an end at her back. The sky behind Father had literally bent. It was warped like a faulty piece of glass, sending streams of pearly white power to gather around Father in rushing rivers.

Garina and Revin were grounded at his feet. Power stormed around both of them, but it was like a breeze in the face of a hurricane. All the power they could muster was barely enough to let them stand, much less to actually reach Father.

Noah laid on the ground not too far from them, dead.

A knot formed in Brayden’s throat. He didn’t know the exact method through the man’s revivals worked, but he did know that Noah wasn’t going to be coming back with any magic — and as powerful as he was, Father was on an entirely different level.

The strongest mages in the Kingdom, and they can’t do shit about him.

“It’s done,” Janice said, wiping her mouth with the back of a hand. “Brayden. It’s not too late. You can still stop this. I can understand you’re scared, but Father isn’t evil. There’s a purpose. For all of this. A necessary one.”

Blood trickled down the side of Brayden’s face. His skull throbbed with pain and his vision spun around him. He’d taken a nasty hit to his head. And, judging by how his thoughts were flitting through his mind like sand through the walls of a cracked hourglass, he wasn’t going to be in fighting shape pretty soon.

“Whatever purpose he’s fighting for matters less than family,” Brayden hissed. “But it seems I’m surrounded by people that never understood the meaning of that word. Father was never the one thing his name claimed to be. Vermil was a vile piece of scum that I desperately pretended to be anything but. The Linwicks were rotted to the core, through and through. But I thought you might have been different.”

Janice’s hands clenched at her sides. “Brayden—”

“But now you’re asking me to give up the only family I have remaining. For what — the sake of some madman who thinks the world should be turned into a sea of stone? Look at the Empire, Janice! It’s gone. Destroyed. By the very man that you’re telling me to follow. And now that he wants to take these students, as well, you want me to just… what? Give up?”

“It’s not about giving up,” Janice spat. “It’s about recognizing that you might not know best!”

“This? This is best?” Brayden screamed. “Look, Janice! Look! What the fuck are you fighting for? Because I don’t see it.”

“And what are you fighting for?” Janice demanded. “The dead? It’s finished for them, Brayden. But Father trusts—”

“You?” Brayden finished. His lips curled into a crazed smirk. “Does he? Does he even care about you? Or are you just another tool in his plan?”

“That is all I must be,” Janice snapped. “A tool is how we serve our purpose.”

Brayden stared at her for a long second. Then he let out a slow, trembling sigh. Pain burned in his heart. It wasn’t the kind of pain that could be caused by any physical or magical attack, nor was it wasn’t the kind that could be healed. “You… you were never anything more than that, were you? I’m sorry. For all my words, I guess I never realized just how deeply his claws were in you.”

“You missed nothing,” Janice said. “I serve my purpose. And it is time for you to serve yours, Brayden. Father gave me an order. Out of care for you, I’ve been trying to hold back. To give you a chance. But that’s done. This is the last opportunity I’ll give you. Stop being a fool. Father might let you join us. But everyone else’s fate has already been sealed. Don’t throw your life away for what is already lost. A tool can still have purpose.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Out of the corner of his eye, Brayden saw Lee shift. Black smoke poured out of the gourd at her side, twisting to form into a new body. Noah was coming back.

Brayden’s jaw set.

“You aren’t the only one,” Brayden said.

“What?” Janice asked, a flicker of confusion passing through her eyes.

Brayden raised his hands and drew on the magical energy lingering within him. He drank deeply from his newly formed Rank 5 Rune, letting crackling energy fill his body to the brim.

“You aren’t the only one holding back,” Brayden said.

Then, with a hiss of crackling purple magic, he vanished.

***

Noah was running before his mind had even finished fully pulling itself back into his body. His feet pounded across the perfectly aligned grass as he charged toward Father, eyes affixed on his target.

Glistening blue armor slammed down around his body. Yoru’s magic. Noah didn’t have time to thank her. He couldn’t even spend the time or energy to acknowledge her. Noah just ran.

The glowing armor fought back against Father’s immense pressure. But with every step he grew closer to the man, the resistance magnified. It could only do so much.

Noah’s soul trembled. Pressure crushed his lungs within his chest.

The only thing that even let him move was the size of his soul. Even compared to Garina, it was large.

But it wasn’t large enough.

Father just watched him, a bemused expression on his face.

Sheer magical ground Noah to nothing but a corpse.

He died, wrung like an old washcloth.

And then he came back, running before the trails of black smoke had finished winding themselves into his body. A wordless scream of defiance tore from his lips as he ran.

It ended only when he died, a step beyond where his previous body laid, returned on the same breath as he formed once more, and then ended as the first had.

Noah returned. He charged once more. The resistance from Garina and Revin’s domains prickled as they both intensified the magic pouring out from them. Perhaps they were trying to help. Perhaps they were just trying to survive.

He didn’t know. He didn’t have the room to think, to know. There were was only space for a single certainty in his mind.

And that certainty sent his legs pounding against the ground and brought him to where his other bodies laid.

It sent him collapsing to the earth just beside them.

It brought him back, cracks carving through his Mindspace, and sent him charging once again.

Noah didn’t know how many times he died within a few seconds. It was a frankly remarkable performance. His Gourd seemed to recognize the urgency of the situation. Never had he come back this quickly before.

He’d built a small hill of his own bodies in the time it took someone to pour a glass of water. The mild interest in Father’s features had transformed to a narrow-eyed gaze. One directed, not at Noah, but at Lee.

Toward the gourd at her side.

Noah was out of time.

“Interesting,” Father said. “I did wonder what manner of magic you were using. What is that gourd?”

He extended a hand toward it.

Noah’s feet pounded against the ground for the umpteenth time. He sprinted toward the pile of bodies, the pounding drum of his heart ringing in his ears. He’d gotten a bit closer to Father with each subsequent charge, but it still wasn’t enough.

I need to get to him. But there’s just no damned way I can do it. Not as I am. He needs to be distracted.

“Somebody!” Noah screamed, his voice raw. “Do something! Now!”

A red streak shot through the sky and toward Father, crackles of Chaos magic twisting around it.

Father’s eyes snapped away from Lee and toward it. His free hand shot up in a blur.

There was a crunch.

Tillian slammed to a halt, neck caught within Father’s grasp, eyes bulging as a pair of bloodied swords spun from his hands to fall harmlessly to the ground beneath him.

“An Inquisitor. With Chaos?” Father tilted his head to the side. “Idiot.”

“Good to know what you hunt,” Tillian wheezed. “And you heard the man. Had… to try.”

Father flicked his hand.

Tillian shot down, crashing into the ground with a sickening crack.

A flicker of annoyance passed through Father’s features. He turned back toward Lee—

“Father!” Brayden’s voice tore out. It was torn with unrestrained anguish.

That didn’t get his attention.

But the loud crack that split the air an instant later certainly did.

Even Noah’s eyes were momentarily yanked toward Brayden.

Toward Janice’s body, cradled in his arms like a lover, her neck snapped and light fading from her eyes like a snuffed candle.

And Father paused.

It was for no more than an instant. Perhaps it was nothing more than a tiny flicker of surprise. But he paused. The immensity of the domain tearing out from his sheer presence gave an inch of way.

Noah exploded into motion. He bounded up the pile of his own corpses, well aware he didn’t have anywhere near the strength to jump all the way up to Father.

But this body wasn’t the one that had to make it.

Noah grabbed the arms of one of his bodies, heaving it into the air and spinning once like a discus thrower. The bodies beneath him slipped and shifted. He lost his footing — but that wasn’t enough to stop him.

With a scream, Noah but finished the spin and launched his body with all the force he could muster even as he plummeted back.

Garina and Revin both shot up toward Father, finally free from the bindings that had been holding them down.

Father’s attention snapped back to the fight. He flicked his hand, sending both of them slamming back down to the ground as he re-summoned the Order. But Noah’s body was nothing more than a corpse. There was nothing to feel the pressure that he exerted.

It flailed through the air, limbs spinning in every direction. Father barely even paid it mind. He simply floated to the side so the corpse would pass him by harmlessly.

And, as the full weight of Father’s domain drove back down onto Noah’s shoulders, he reached deep within himself.

Deeper than he’d ever reached before. Past his runes. Past the cracks and damage of his soul. Into the deep infinity of the Line, and then an inch beyond. He felt his soul strain as the fog from all the death he’d undergone obscured his path.

Then Noah died, his body unable to withstand Father’s power.

And, as he did, he reached for the noose of magic that bound him to the gourd before it could even begin to tighten.

He reached for the magic that had been his ever since he’d arrived at Arbitage. The power that had brought him from the Scorched Acres to where he stood today.

The magic that he’d never dared touch.

Until today.

Noah’s eyes snapped back open, in a body once more.

But he didn’t awaken by the gourd.

He found himself hurtling through the air, bound into a corpse that already had a foot in the grave from the magical force squeezing harder than the grip of death itself.

Noah found himself an inch away from the Long Night.

His hand shot out. He grabbed onto the wooden staff. His lips peeled back in a snarl.

No matter how powerful or paranoid Father may have been, even he wasn’t prepared for a corpse to start moving.

Noah ripped the artifact from Father’s hands.

The pressure choking him evaporated.

He hit the ground in a tumbling roll. The noose around his neck tightened, dragging him free of his stolen corpse and trying to pull his soul back toward its proper place, but Noah resisted it for a moment longer.

He shot to his feet, the wooden staff gripped tightly in his hands as he brought it up into the air. Then he brought it down toward his knee.

“No!” Father screamed, panic and fear exploding in his eyes. He blurred forward, leaping for Noah.

Garina slammed into him. They both tumbled to the side. Father threw her away from himself and spun, blurring back into motion without wasting more than an instant.

He appeared an inch away from Noah—

A loud crack echoed out.

Father froze. And, finally, emotion reached his eyes. Disbelief and horror washed across his face as Noah dropped the two halves of the Long Night, letting them clatter to the ground.

Something roiled within him, so immense, so primal, that even Noah couldn’t have said where it had come from. It was an energy unlike anything he’d ever felt. The immensity of the power made everything he’d ever felt, everything he’d ever seen, nothing more than a tiny flame flickering in the face of a forest fire.

“No,” Father whispered. He took a step back, the terror in his features intensifying. “You — how? Do you think such an artifact is broken without consequence? What have you done? What have you done?”

“I’d say I ruined a few hundred years of work,” Noah said with a crooked grin.

Then he died.

The pull of the gourd could be denied no longer. The strange energy filling him evaporated along with his life, snuffed like a candle, as Sunder tore him out of his corpse and into a newly forming body.

And, in the near distance, the screaming of the Night’s Shadow grew louder. Far, far louder.