“Father,” Noah said. His words were cold and measured, but he tasted dread on his tongue. Here, at the end of the empire, was the one opponent that he’d never managed to get the upper hand over. The man who shouldn’t have existed at all.

After all — just like Vermil Linwick — Father was dead. At least, he should have been. It seemed the two of them had that in common. His true goals had been so well hidden that nobody, not even Garina, had managed to figure them out until it was far too late.

Noah’s eyes lingered on the wooden staff in Father’s hands. It was plain, but there was no doubt about it. Father had the Long Night. And, at his behest, the Arbalest Empire fell. Father alone was enough of a threat.

Taking a fight against Father, especially with the ancient artifact, was already akin to suicide. It was the kind of fight that even Noah would have avoided. He only killed himself when there was actually something that could come from it.

But everyone and everything that Noah cared about in this entire world stood in the cracked remains of an old tower behind him. He didn’t have a choice in the matter. The only path out of the empire laid before him before him, and Father stood in its path.

“You always were the one thing I wondered about,” Father said. “Every other variable was accounted for. It all went according to plan… except for you. I spent quite some time wondering why, Vermil. It gnawed at my soul. Not because you posed me any threat, but because you confused me.”

Noah stared at Father silently, digging through his mind in desperate search of some manner of advantage. But even if he were willing to risk the lives of every single person behind him, Father had defeated Garina. He’d defeated Jalen.

Even if we could win… How many people will die if we fight Father? Which of them would I be willing to sacrifice to save the others?

The distant screaming continued to intensify as the Night’s Shadow grew closer. The enormous Rank 8 monster swallowed the sky in its path, leaving behind nothing behind but a starless black sheet. It must have been no more than a few minutes away from turning every single one of them into stone along with the rest of what had once been the Arbalest empire.

“And did you figure it out?” Noah asked. “I’d imagine you’ve already determined it was no mere demon you summoned.”

“Considering I was aiming for a Rank 5, I believe that possibility was crossed off when you slaughtered the Inquisitors I gifted you,” Father replied. “I thought I might find the answer when I finally laid hands upon the artifact. I saw what others could only catch glimpses of. The true weave of the universe. The inevitable, ordained reality that must always come to pass. And you were not in it, Vermil. You don’t exist. You’re a messy patch of discord in a world of perfect order.”

“I’m hurt,” Noah said. He was all too aware of the approaching Night’s Shadow, but talking bought him precious moments to think — not that they were doing much. He needed a way to defeat Father.

But I don’t even know what kind of magic he actually uses. I don’t know what he’s capable of.

“I truly doubt it. The blade cares not for the flesh it cuts,” Father said. “I had thought you would remain the one mystery that this loathsome prison had to offer. I can say with complete honesty that I am delighted to see you, Vermil. But that name… so drab. It isn’t yours at all. So who are you?”

The only way I even have the slightest chance of doing anything is if I can use every scrap of magic I have to offer. My Pattern, my domain, Sunder, Combustion, the Fragment of Renewal, the Awakened state, literally everything I have.

But I haven’t been able to reach an Awakened state since the fight with Garina.

“You can’t ask that without answering the same thing yourself. Your name isn’t Father. He’s just as dead as Vermil is,” Noah said. His hands clenched into fists at his sides as he reached for his runes. He couldn’t afford to stand around and talk forever. Everyone was at his back. If they couldn’t get Father out of the way, then death would come for them anyway in the form of the Night’s Shadow.

“This name has been mine so long that it may as well be true. I’ve become rather taken with it,” Father replied. “But in the end, names are just names. The only power they have over us is what we give them.”

“Sounds like a fancy way to say you’re too scared to say who you really are. Even now, with the power of an artifact, you won’t reveal yourself.”

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“I do not fault you for your attempts to anger me. Such desperation is the nature of prey. You should be proud. Within the many years I spent in the Arbalest Empire, you alone drew my interest. That is not an easy feat. But, in the end, there is only one way to truly take the measure of man.” Father let out a soft laugh that never made it to his eyes. He raised the Long Night into the air. “It is to see how he dies.”

And then, as the screams of the Night’s Shadow advanced and consumed everything in their path, as the Arbalest Empire crumbled behind them, Father unleashed the full might of his domain.

The world froze.

Fractals of frosty white power carved into being around Father. There wasn’t so much as a single bend or curve within them. They cut out at right angles, traveling along invisible planes in a cubical web.

The magic within them was beyond cold. But it wasn’t the chill of ice magic or any discernable temperature that Noah felt. This frost went far deeper than that. It was the unyielding walls of a prison. The promised inevitability of death. The silent stiffness of once friends who were now nothing but passersby on the street.

This power was not magic. There was no song or pattern to be discovered within it because the pattern was so simple that there was nothing to be found at all. It may as well have been as single word slammed into reality with a machine-fashioned stamp.

Obey.

An immense pressure slammed down into Noah. It drove him down to his knees, tore the breath from his lungs, threatened to grind his very soul to a paste before he even had a chance to fight back. A pained wheeze slipped from his lips.

“It’s incredible, isn’t it?” Father asked. “This is the true nature of the universe. The fruits of the tree that I have been watering for hundreds of years. The ability to make every single thing fit into reality just the way it should.”

“There’s nothing natural about this,” Noah snarled, each word burning his throat like acid. He summoned his violin and bow with a thought, releasing every scrap of pressure he could draw from his runes.

It was like a gentle breeze in the face of a hurricane.

Father’s power eclipsed him completely. The difference between their power was immense. No matter how much he drew on every single scrap of magic he had, he could barely get his hands to do anything more than tremble.

A droplet of sweat rolled down the side of Noah’s face. If he could start a Formation, if he could slip into the Awakened state, then perhaps he had a chance. But as things were… there was absolutely nothing he could do.

Father was too—

The pressure on Noah faltered.

Not by any significant amount, but by just enough that he felt himself able to draw in an extra breath.

A domain prickled against the back of Noah’s mind. But, before he could even finish registering it, he felt the pressure give again.

And then it gave again.

And again.

Noah’s knees trembled. His jaw clenched so tightly that prongs of pain shot through his teeth and into his brain. Blood pounded through his veins to the beat of a war drum heart. And, as Father’s influence receded farther, he slowly pushed himself to one knee.

A dozen presences burned around his mind like candles, the weak force from each one of them fighting back against the freezing gale trying to choke him out. But the relief didn’t come for free.

Domains surrounded him, their pressure joining in with that that came from his soul to hold Father’s presence back.

Moxie. Lee. His students.

Every single one of them stood beside him. They’d dragged themselves over into the range of Father’s domain.

“What?” Moxie asked, her voice tense with strain. “Did you think we were going to stand around and do nothing?”

“Better to die fighting than to the damned thing behind us,” Silvertide said, his grip around his staff white-knuckled. “I didn’t make it to this ripe old age to die by anything but a blade through my heart.”

“I’m not scared of some asshole who calls himself daddy,” Todd snarled. He spat on the ground. “I’ve been ready to die for years. Just make sure to bury me face down so Father can kiss my ass on the way out.”

“I have looked into the future,” Yoru said softly, her glowing hands sputtering as the moonlight that made them up fought to keep from blowing out. “And you are not in it.”

“Liar,” Aylin whispered, his voice so soft that it barely even reached Noah’s ears.

One by one, every single one of them drew on their magic. They raised bows of ice and formed weapons of glowing power, leaning against each other’s domains to keep from being crushed into a paste on the spot.

The force of Father’s presence was beyond immense. It was all they could to do stand.

But stand they did.

Noah didn’t tell anyone to run. He wouldn’t disrespect anyone here like that.

“Amusing,” Father said. “Pointless, but amusing. Janice — deal with the others. I will take Vermil myself. After how far he has come, he deserves to see just how great the distance between us truly is.”

“Yes, Father,” Janice said.

“Do you think you’re a god?” Noah asked, putting the bow against the strings of his violin. He felt power flow from him and into the instrument. Noah could already feel the formation he wanted to make in his mind. He didn’t know it was enough — but it would have to be. “Because I’ve seen gods, Father. And you aren’t one of them.”

“I suppose,” Father said, his words lingering in the air as a slow smile stretched across his face and he pointed the Long Night at Noah, “We shall find out.”