Nym was both impressed with and frustrated by Myzalik’s defenses. The wards weren’t that strong, by ascendant standards. Almost all of the arcana used was sixth layer, with a few seventh layer sections and a single eighth layer that he’d found so far. But they were so intricate and complex that Pyoka’s lessons were much less helpful than he’d hoped.

That was to be expected, honestly. Wards just weren’t a branch of magic that benefits greatly from excessive power. They were all about finesse, a quality an Exarch had in spades. Nym could barely figure out what the wards did, let alone how to disarm them.

Maybe if he’d been closer to Myzalik’s palace, chronologically speaking, it would have been easier to decipher the warding scheme. Doing it from reality prime would also make it easier to examine, though any increased proximity to the palace also increased the risk he was taking. As it stood, it would be the work of decades to find a way through the defenses.

If it was just that, Nym could have dealt with it. He had literally an unlimited amount of time, after all. Unfortunately for him, the wards weren’t a static defense. They were continually being updated, improved, or changed in some way. Sometimes, they just shifted as part of the defense. Even if he learned how to perfectly get through them in the time he was studying, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be different seconds later.

It became an impossible puzzle, where he needed to not only sort his way through the wards, but then do it again a thousand more times just to make sure he wasn’t caught by them minutes later. And that was only to pierce the outer layers of Myzalik’s defenses. Even that much assumed he was never caught while he was teasing out a solution. If the Exarch ever became aware of Nym’s attempts, he might take an active hand in his warding.

This was the reason his copies had told him he’d have at most a thirty second window, probably less, to strike at Myzalik in a hundred years. There was also an unfortunate amount of risk of Niramyn getting involved in that scenario, which wasn’t something he had a good way to mitigate. It could just as easily end in the same catastrophe that striking at the past-scenario would.

Nym hadn’t yet begun the process of figuring out Myzalik’s personal defenses. His hope was that the magic itself would bypass most of those. It had worked on Niramyn, after all. Theoretically, the spell would be recognized as beneficial and, more importantly, self-cast. That was one of the tricky things it did, he’d found. God Killing magic was based on age reducing magic, which was impossible to use on someone else, and seemed to ignore a lot of defenses because it tricked them into thinking the victim was the caster.

His main concern was that there would be other defenses Myzalik might have that Niramyn didn’t. As the creator of the spell, if there was anyone who’d figured out counter-measures to protect against it, it was Myzalik. But, if that were the case, Nym’s only remaining options were an endless existence as a hermit or to die fighting.

Given who he was going against, his death would erase him from existence. He supposed at that point, he wouldn’t care either way. Nym certainly didn’t want to die, but he wasn’t willing to spend centuries or longer hiding, waiting for someone else to take care of his problem for him. There was nowhere left to run now.

Still, for all the problems arrayed against him, Nym thought he had a chance of winning. He was working on cracking the wards, the god killer spell should account for most personal defenses Myzalik would have, and if not, it didn’t matter. He was only going to get the chance to cast that one single spell anyway. If it didn’t work, the final fallback plan was to turn the spell over to the Ascendant Council and, well… everybody.

If everybody could kill an ascendant, there wouldn’t be anything special about him knowing too. They’d be just as mortal as the humans they looked down their noses at.

But first, he needed some help. Nym knew the weakest point in any warding scheme. He’d spend an inordinate amount of time trying to strengthen it himself. It was the spot where the ascendant looked out at the rest of existence. That, if anything, would be his entry point. At least, it would be if he could find the damn thing.

Nym decided he needed help from an infiltration specialist. Fortunately for him, he happened to know one. He had lost track of his acquaintance over the last century or so, but, well, finding him again shouldn’t be too difficult.

* * *

Nym appeared in the sky over a familiar island and glanced down at it, searching. His eyes were keen enough to make out individual leaves from a mile overhead, but his magic was what did the heavy lifting in his search.

There was plenty of wildlife on the island, but no people. Hidden in the shadows of the trees and also their own magic, the foxes skulked about. They hunted for prey, or for each other in games of sport. All of them were intelligent, at least as smart as any human Nym had ever known. Truly, Rizin’s project had borne fruit.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

In a way, he was surprised that the island had existed for a hundred years without interference from so much as a single ascendant. Perhaps Rizin had found some way to hide the connection between the lab and his island. Or perhaps no ascendants had ever bothered to go look. It seemed to Nym that very few of them did more than casually glance in the lab’s direction to check up on whatever projects were important to them, of which there were few.

Then again, he’d had the bad luck to encounter other ascendants there twice, including one who seemed to hold a grudge against him. Nym suspected there was some sort of fox magic shenanigans going on, which suited him just fine. Fox magic shenanigans were the reason he was there, after all.

He quickly found hundreds of foxes, but none of them were the one he was looking for. That didn’t do much to deter Nym, since what he was really doing was making his presence known. Rizin would find him soon enough.

An hour later saw Nym feeling considerably more impatient about the whole thing. Either Rizin wasn’t paying very close attention to his foxes, or he knew that Nym was there and was screwing with him. Or… something had happened to him in the last century. Perhaps the ascendants had been paying more attention than he’d given them credit for.

Nym was in the middle of skimming through the island’s timeline, looking for any signs of Rizin, when he noticed one of the foxes watching him. She had pale blue and white fur, and unlike the other foxes he’d found, this one had three tails fanning out behind her.

“Interesting,” he said. She wasn’t immortal, but she was on her way. He didn’t know exactly how foxes went about the process, but it was obvious that she’d begun it. That might be Rizin’s work there. It was at least a good place to look.

He teleported down to stand in front of her, scattering nearby wildlife with his abrupt appearance. The fox watched him calmly, unmoved by his magic. “Hello,” she said.

“Hi. I don’t suppose you could spare a minute to help me out.”

“I could,” the fox said. “I’m not sure that I will.”

“Mmm, that’s fair. It would be foolish to agree to something without first knowing what it is you are agreeing to.”

“Precisely,” the fox said.

“Then, let me tell you. I am searching for Rizin, a mystic fox I once knew a hundred years ago.”

“I do not know such a being.”

“I see. Interesting. Well then, I guess I’ll be on my way. Thank you for taking some time to talk to me.”

“You are still no fun at all, even after all these years,” a voice said from behind. “Or maybe it’s just been a blink of an eye to you.”

Nym felt power swell up behind him, something huge and looming and dark, and he rolled his eyes. “I see the project’s going well for you. I was wondering if it was a coincidence that no other ascendants have ever appeared, or if it’s something you did.”

“Little bit of both,” Rizin admitted. “Aren’t you going to turn around?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you want me to.”

“Considering that you’re here to ask me for a favor, it seems like the least you could do is humor me.”

With a sigh, Nym spun in place and looked up at Rizin, who was about thirty feet tall now. His fur had lightened to a pale red, and it was even turning white across his underside. He sported the same vulpine grin he always had. The big difference though, at least from Nym’s perspective, was that he could see eight tails now. There was still space missing for one, but he suspected if and when he reached the eighth layer, he’d finally see that as well.

“I thought you were immortal,” Nym said.

“I am! Why would you think otherwise?”

“Just noticing a bit of gray here and there.”

“What?” Rizin yelped in outrage. “There’s no gray!”

“Mmm, looks pretty gray to me.” Nym looked over his shoulder at the blue fox. “What do you think?”

“I see no… new… gray,” the fox said.

“New gray! You traitor!”

“Apologies, Father.”

“Father, huh?” Nym asked.

Rizin shrunk down to a more reasonable size and said, “I am father to them all.”

“As long as you don’t try to insist I’m their mom,” Nym said.

“Well, of course not. If anyone is, it would be your golem.”

“Naera isn’t really mine.”

“That wasn’t the point,” Rizin said.

“Father, do you need anything else?” the blue fox asked.

“Hmm? No, thank you for the help.”

With a nod of her head, the fox disappeared from sight. Nym could still see her outline inside the cloud of arcana she’d cloaked herself in, but he pretended not to as she slipped away into the brush. Rizin watched him with a grin, and said, “My protégée. Someday, in a few hundred years, she might become like me.”

“Want me to check for you?”

“Nah, half the fun is in waiting to find out. Why skip to the end?”

“Well, if you’re sure,” Nym said. “So how has the last century been treating this place?”

Rizin circled around Nym once, then said, “You don’t really care. Hmm… not much has changed. You’ve made it to the seventh layer, though. Congratulations. How many decades has it been since you’ve last seen me?”

“It’s hard to keep track in the outer layers,” Nym admitted. “No need to eat or sleep. No rising or setting of the sun. Really, no sun at all.”

“Sounds awfully boring. I never could figure out why your kind is so obsessed with lurking out there, where nothing interesting ever happens.”

“I’m starting to agree.”

“But you’re here now, so I’m guessing you have something exciting in mind.”

“You could say that,” Nym said. “I’m looking for a bit of advice on a project I’m working on.”

“Interesting. Why don’t you tell me what it is you’re looking to know, and I’ll tell you how much it’ll cost you.”

“Not here,” Nym said. “I want to be behind as many wards as I can.”

“Oh? You must be working against someone quite dangerous if you don’t trust the hidden presence spell.”

“You have a new lair set up?” Nym asked.

“Certainly. Come with me.”

Rizin disappeared, leaving Nym just enough time to latch onto the arcana he left behind with his magic and follow it through space. He appeared next to the fox in a vast underground cave, right in front of the giant cushion he’d grown accustomed to finding the fox sleeping on.

“Now then,” Rizin said, hopping up, “let’s talk.”