The look on Father’s face was almost enough to make Spider forget about the weeping wound in his chest.

Surprise flashed across the man’s cold features as an emotion finally broke its way into his dead eyes. Not a word needed to be said. Father hadn’t accounted for his dome being broken. Fighting Spider and a bunch of miscellaneous Arbitage professors was one thing. But fighting Garina was another thing entirely — and that wasn’t even to mention Revin.

Unfortunately, Spider’s smug satisfaction didn’t get to last long. He could feel every drop of blood as it fell from the upper part of the hole in his chest to splatter against the lower half. While he himself didn’t particularly find much need of a heart, Noah’s body was another thing entirely.

Time. I once thought I had too much of it, and now I can’t seem to get enough. The lives of mortals are so… panicked.

But even as the wound dragged him closer to death and the loss of his magic, Spider felt the pressure that had been bearing down on him crumbling. Adding both Garina and Revin’s domains into the mix had weakened the oppressive power of Father’s presence.

They were no longer being smothered. They could breathe, and that meant they had a chance to fight back properly. Even without the use of Sunder, adding two Rank 7s to their side had immensely shifted the—

Garina vanished.

A black streak carved down through the air toward Father with such speed that a deafening boom slammed into Spider’s ears as the sonic barrier was shattered.

Solid white Order solidified into a disk beside Father. The streak crashed into it with a thunderous crash. A wave of pressure exploded outward, tearing apart all the grass in a fifteen foot radius around Father.

But, before the strike could even finish registering, the streak blurred again. Three more strikes swept down for Father in rapid succession. Disks of white bloomed around him like the falling petals of a dying flower. Each one intercepted the strikes, shattering in the process but stopping the blows from connecting.

Father drove the Long Night down into the ground. A wave of Order whirled around him like a spherical hurricane.

Garina leapt back, still moving so fast that she was nothing more than a streak of black until she skidded to a stop where she’d been standing a moment before. Fury burned in her eyes and her hands were clenched so tightly around the hilt of her sword that they trembled.

“This is unexpected,” Father said dispassionately. “But ultimately, it changes nothing.”

Revin cocked his head to the side and tapped a finger against the side of his jaw. “If it changes nothing, then I don’t imagine you would have popped that big dome up, old timer. You’re looking a bit scared to me.”

Father raised the Long Night. Order twisted through the air around him in frosty white streaks. It wove like the threads of a tapestry piecing themselves together around him, sending waves of pressure rolling out to press into all of them.

“Don’t take him lightly,” Garina warned, her teeth clenched. “He was powerful the last time I fought him. The other Apostles arrived in time to interfere, but that won’t happen again. He’s definitely taken precautions to keep them locked out. If he hadn’t, they’d be here already.”

“The Apostles being useless. What a surprise,” Revin drawled. He raised his scythe and spun it through the air before him before lowering into a fighting stance. “Fortunately, we brought our own team. How you holding up there? Nobody dead yet?”

“That depends on your definition of dead,” Spider said. “I am not yet done.”

“We can fight,” Moxie said. “Not that I think there’s much we can do against someone like that.”

“There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” Tim asked. He cracked his neck. “I’m not letting the kids get hurt while I still draw breath.”

“Couldn’t have put that better myself,” Silvertide said. “Father is only one man wielding the power of an artifact far greater than he. He can’t stop all of us.”

The magic weaving around Father pulsated. In spite of the brilliant white energy that made it up, something about the power felt sickly. Disgust welled within Spider. The Order was a plague in a pretty dress.

It did not belong.

He drew on his power, calling Chaos from Unraveling Disruption. Even if Noah’s Rune was only a Rank 5, it was still an immensely powerful one. Even Father couldn’t ignore him completely.

“What’s the plan?” Moxie asked. “Do you know how to fight this guy? Is there a weakness?”

Garina’s grim silence was answer enough.

“There’s no strategy against something like this. None but one,” Revin said simply. “Fight for your lives.”

“I’ve got one,” Todd snarled. He raised his hand, molten gold glowing through the cracks covering the stone armor encasing his entire body. A shrill hum filled the air as his arm trembled, but he kept it locked on target.

Then, with a deafening crack, a gout of fire exploded from his palm. A fragment of stone tore out from Todd. The stone streaked through the air in a flash. A twisting coil of flame in its wake was the only way that Spider could track its path.

The stone struck the Order twisting around Father. In an instant, all the magic was stripped away from the stone. It became nothing more than a stone.

A stone moving at a very, very fast speed.

Father summoned a disk of solidified Order before himself. The stone smashed into it with a loud crash, shattering the disk and sending tiny fragments of rock spraying out in a small explosion.

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One of them sliced across the side of his cheek.

It was a small cut, little more than a scrape.

But Father noticed. He paused. The Order filling the air around him roiled like a pot of bubbling water. A single droplet of blood rolled down the side of his face. It traced to his chin where it hung in a bead, suspended just before it could fall.

Garina exploded into motion. She transformed into a black streak, tearing across the ground toward Father with a roar like a sinner out of hell. Revin leapt into a shadow, exploding up behind Father as his eyes flashed a deep, crimson red and his scythe arced toward the order.

Spider ripped his hands down through the air, sending a dozen loud, discordant notes trilling into the air around him. Then a cold smile slipped across his face and he burst into motion as well, sprinting toward Father at full tilt, Chaos coiling in his wake.

There was no need to try and preserve his life. Death was already certain. And, if they couldn’t take Father down on this next attack, then they’d never take him down at all.

The three of them weren’t alone. Lee was right at Spider’s back, clad in Yoru’s moonlight armor, and Silvertide was just behind her.

Moxie’s vines exploded up from the ground alongside them, weaving in and out of it like dolphins breaching the sea as brilliant red flowers sprouted all along their thorned lengths.

And then Spider was upon Father and he had no time to concentrate upon anything but his own fight.

The Chaos wrapped around him was only enough to hold the immense Order off for a few brief seconds. Garina and Revin both brought their weapons carving into Father’s defenses at the same time as Spider drove his fist into the twisting sphere of white.

A shrill scream tore into Spider’s eardrums. They burst in an instant, but he barely even noticed.

The Order around Father shattered.

He stumbled back, raising the Long Night before him defensively. A disk of white bloomed before Garina’s blade, intercepting it with a crash. But Garina wasn’t his only opponent. Father was fast, but his magic wasn’t instantaneous. He was, after all, still only human.

Another disk bloomed before Revin, stopping the man’s scythe before it could find its mark. That cost him a fraction of a second.

And that fraction of a second was what brought Spider’s fist right up into Father’s stomach. Even as Order ate away at the Chaos enveloping Spider, he unleashed the full strength and weight of the runes within his soul through the strike in a wave of Rune Force.

Father’s eyes bulged. He stumbled backward with a wheeze, bringing the Long Night carving down through the air like an axe.

The world inverted. A wave of concentrated Order bore down on Spider —

Vines exploded before him. They wove into a wall and bloomed with blood-red flowers that filled the air with a lingering pollen. Even as the Order consumed the vines and withered them into husks that fell back to the earth like dirt, more vines rose from their remains.

Living plant became dead, the dead became living once more — and the Order was swallowed within the cycle. Mere vines couldn’t have ever hoped to stop one of the absolute forces of the universe… but they were more than enough to completely waste it.

By the time the magic within the vines had been consumed, there was no Order left to warp Spider. It had spent all of its magic trying to tear through Moxie’s vines.

Father danced around Revin and Garina, spinning the Long Night around himself and sending waves of Order magic to force both of them back. Revin slipped through the darkness, flitting in and out of being a shadow in candlelight.

His scythe was little more than a blur as it struck from every direction seemingly at once in a relentless flurry of strikes.

Garina discarded any attempts of graceful combat entirely. Now that Father was distracted with Revin, she advanced in a straight line toward Father as she sent blows crashing down one after the other.

And they were forcing him back.

Lee darted out while Father was preoccupied with Garina and Revin.

A bolt of Order shot out for her, but Silvertide dashed forward and intercepted it, forming a thick shield of interlaced metal strands before himself. They warped and screeched as Order folded his thread into a metal cube, but the interference bought Lee enough time to close the distance between herself and Father.

She dove at his feet, managing to sweep them out from under him and sending them both tumbling to the ground. Yoru’s armor crumbled around her as she scrambled back to her feet.

Spider charged forward to take advantage of the momentary opportunity. The Rank 7s had the same idea. They both brought their weapons blurring down for the fallen man.

Disks of Order materialized around Father, blocking both Garina and Revin’s attacks as he drove the Long Night into the ground and pushed himself up. He thrust a hand at Lee as she ran. A white javelin snapped out from him and streaked toward her back.

Vines exploded up in the javelin’s path, one plant after the other withering away as the magic tore through them. They managed to slow the strike for just long enough for Lee to a portal to snap open beneath Lee. It dropped her off beside Tim moments before the javelin carved through the air where she’d been.

Garina drove her foot into the ground. A shockwave tore through it and shattered the earth beneath Father, launching him into the air in an instant.

“Now!” Garina yelled. “Finish him!”

Black wings exploded out from her back. Power screamed through the air all around her as a black hole seemed to open up centered on her position, warping the very air itself as it trembled in anticipation.

Shadows enveloped Revin in an instant. He transformed into a stream of pitch black magic broken only by a pair of hungry red eyes glistening from within it. Even his scythe vanished within the darkness, replaced by the jagged claws of some shadowy beast.

Spider dug his fingers into the air and brought them carving downward. Streaks of concentrated Chaos magic screamed out toward Father as both Revin and Garina flashed toward him before he could hit the ground.

And then a brilliant thrum chimed through the air. It was like a splash of cold water.

Garina and Revin slammed back into the dirt in unison. The magic around them cracked and shattered like fallen plates, and Spider’s Chaos was swept away in a huge wave of pressure that crashed down on the world.

Spider found himself slamming to his knees as brilliant white light ignited around Father. He floated, suspended in the air, his long hair snapping in a furious gale. His eyes burned like two silver disks. Two extra sets of hands, each fashioned of gossamer silver-white Order, rose above his back. They pressed their fingertips together to form O shapes above his head. Concentrated Order swirled between their palms like miniature storms.

“Did you really believe I would fall to the likes of you?” Father asked, staring at them like they were nothing but insects beneath his feet. “My victory was ordained the moment Order made itself known to me.”

We’re running out of time.

Spider could feel his soul trembling. The Order was trying to twist his very being. He was only spared because of the distance between them — but even that wouldn’t save him for long.

“We’ll see about that,” Garina snarled, slowly pushing herself back to her feet with a great amount of effort. She clenched her teeth. The black wings unfurled from her back once more, trembling as they fought to remain in existence in the face of the massive waves of Order rolling out from Father.

“No,” Father said. “We will not.”

Above his head, the hands of Order pulled apart.

The sky cracked open.

The world bent on itself like a warping plane of glass.

And, before he even knew what had happened, Spider died.