The black sun imploded, and the world shattered into a thousand pieces.

Even though he’d made it a few hundred yards away, Zeke screamed as his body followed suit. It wasn’t the endless abyss waiting for him, though. Instead, he briefly saw past the construct of reality, only to witness an all-seeing eye staring back at him. It was like a black hole, a sun, and the eye of a true god, all rolled into one. And Zeke couldn’t even begin to comprehend it.

Indeed, when he tried, he felt madness begin to unravel his mind.

“You are not ready,” a voice, simultaneously louder and more silent than anything he’d ever heard, intoned. It echoed through his mind, obliterating any thought of a response.

But there was some shred of his identity left, some tiny sliver of Ezekiel Blackwood that refused to surrender to anything. Even God.

So, with great mental effort, he latched onto the broken pieces of his identity and, through sheer force of willpower, yanked them back into place. Nothing fit together properly, but that didn’t matter. It gave him solace, and brief though it was, it also allowed him to see beyond the broken shards of reality.

And it was horrifying.

A great battlefield stretched before him, larger even than a galaxy, and filled with countless warriors. Each one towered hundreds of feet into the air, trading titanic blows with one another. Every attack shook the ground like a true earthquake, and the combination of the multitude was enough to shatter worlds. Powerful didn’t even begin to describe the warriors. If they had fought in the Eternal Realm, the entire plane of existence would have broken before their might.

They were all different, too. Some fought with enormous weapons. Others did so with slung balls of molten lava. Great and holy light erupted in clusters, countered by massive gouts of hellfire large enough to swallow cities.

It was chaotic.

It was beautifully destructive.

And to Zeke, who had practically lived on a battlefield for the past few years, it felt like the home he’d sought ever since being reborn in those troll caves, what felt like a lifetime ago.

The glimpse only lasted a single instant, but it was enough to tell Zeke that he had a long, long way to go. Only a short time ago, he’d been crushed by the necromantic vessel, but even that hulking and powerful creature had found itself on the battlefield he’d just seen, it would have been destroyed right down to the very smallest molecule. And it wouldn’t have taken more than a second to meet that fate.

“You do not belong!” the voice shouted, far more forcefully than before. When that sound – if that was even the right word to describe it – hit Zeke’s mind, it did so with the force of a hammer, scattering his thoughts to the wind.

At last, the world repaired itself. The great cracks in reality disappeared, and suddenly, Zeke was thrown backward, hitting a building and passing through it like it was made of paper. He didn’t even slow down. Not on the first or second, and not even on the tenth. In fact, he lost count of the number of buildings he destroyed during his flight.

Then, finally, he came to a rest on the outskirts of Darukar.

But he couldn’t move. He could barely think, much less witness the destruction he’d caused. More than anything, though, he could only hope that his people had managed to survive.

* * *

The world screamed.

Looming over the once-great city was a giant pillar of destruction, the likes of which Talia had never witnessed. She had never imagined such a thing was possible, even after having witnessed the destruction wrought by Zeke’s most powerful skill. He’d used it back in the dungeon, but what she saw now was obliteration on a completely different level.

With that great pillar at its center, a dense and intricate web of black cracks spread across the sky, and when Talia looked upon them, she only felt despair, death, and worst of all, a blinding headache that felt like her very memories had been snatched out of her mind.

If she stared for too long, she had no doubt that everything about her would simply cease to exist.

And then, it all exploded.

She was more than a dozen miles away, but the force of the shockwave – spreading far too fast for even her increased perceptions to track – knocked her backwards at least a hundred yards. The only reason her path had ceased was because she hit a building. Otherwise, she might’ve kept going for a mile or more.

Still, it wasn’t any worse than other injuries she’d sustained over the years. Only a few broken bones, which was nothing a little heartsblood elixir – or an actual heart – wouldn’t fix.

Before that, though, Talia pushed herself to her feet and looked out at the devastation Zeke had wrought. Of the enormous giant of necrotic flesh, nothing remained. The afterimage of a black sun loomed above a barren landscape. Of the once-mighty city, nothing remained. There wasn’t even rubble left.

She let out a long, low gasp.

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But then, a wave of relief swept through her. At least everyone had gotten into the tower. The only reason she’d stayed outside was because she had mistakenly believed herself durable enough to withstand the skill.

After all, she’d already seen it once before. She was confident in her own endurance. That had been a mistake, and one that could very well have killed her, had she been even a few hundred feet closer to the skill’s epicenter. Even with how far away she had stayed, it had been a close thing.

At times, Talia felt powerful. And by all accounts, she was a gifted fighter, with plenty of evidence to support that label. But when she looked upon that field of devastation and was reminded of the things Zeke could do, she realized that she was like a child comparing herself to an adult. Even if their levels were similar – which they still weren’t – Zeke could destroy cities. Meanwhile, she struggled to fight a measly flesh giant. They were not the same.

But rather than make her feel useless, the difference in power gave her hope. When they’d ascended, they had been much closer in power. Certainly, Zeke had always been stronger than her, but back then, she had managed to close the gap. Since that time, he’d spent almost every waking moment in battle. Meanwhile, she’d played detective. Or she had lazed about in the now-destroyed city of Darukar. And that gap had only widened.

The fact that there was a clear reason for it gave her hope, though. She could do the same as him. And while his head start seemed huge at the moment, in the grand scheme of things, a couple of years was nothing. She could catch up, and together, they would be capable of doing far more than either of them could alone.

She was certain of it.

After a few more moments, she dusted herself off and limped away from the rubble through which she’d crashed. It only took a few hundred feet before even the rubble disappeared, replaced by bare earth that looked as if a portion had been scooped away with the world’s largest spoon. Talia knew that wasn’t really what had happened. Instead, everything within the skill’s blast radius had simply been destroyed. Now, it was like it had never even existed.

The crater sloped slightly downward, and each step Talia took toward the nadir, she felt the destructive power of Zeke’s Will. It was unmistakable. After a few hundred yards, it started to sting. And a couple hundred more, it became truly uncomfortable. Eventually, she was forced to stop altogether when bits of her skin started sloughing off. So, she retreated, knowing full well that if she kept going, she would not survive.

More, the mana in the area had grown so diffuse that she questioned whether or not it was even there, which made her even more uncomfortable than the pain she felt when her skin was peeling off.

Once she reached a safe distance, she crouched to consider the situation. Zeke was out there somewhere. She was sure of it, largely because she was completely unwilling to consider the alternative. After all, he wasn’t entirely safe from his own power – a fact he’d proven on multiple occasions.

Sighing, she realized that she had no other choice but to search for him. He was a big person, and as such, she could only hope that he would be easy to locate. So, without further consideration, she pushed herself to her feet, tested her legs to see if the broken bones had mended, then after feeling that they were up for at least a light jog, she took off. It was painful, but she’d long since learned to deal with much worse.

Fortunately, Talia’s version of a light jog was much faster than most people – even ones with a decent number of levels under their belt – could sprint. So, she could cover quite a lot of ground. On the other side of the coin, she had a lot of area to search. The crater itself was a few miles in diameter, and she hoped Zeke had made it much further than the edge of the depression. So, her effective search area was at least ten miles wide. Maybe closer to fifteen, which meant that she’d be forced to traverse the rubble strewn outskirts of the city.

With that in mind, she started her search. At first, she did so haphazardly, but it wasn’t long before she realized that the only way she’d find Zeke like that was if she got incredibly lucky. It wasn’t long after that realization that she established a grid pattern, depending on her memory of the city to guide her.

And like that she searched for hours, finding nothing. Eventually, when the sun set, she was forced to take a break. During her search, she discovered two things. First, nothing in the city was left alive. No pests. No people. Not even the bacteria that grew on the sewer grates. There was absolutely nothing left.

The second thing she came to recognize was that she didn’t like being alone. So long as she had something to focus on, she was fine. She could ignore the despair growing in her heart. But the moment she slowed down and let herself truly grasp her own loneliness, she found herself sinking into a depressive pit from which she would struggle to escape.

She needed to find Zeke.

He was her only hope of filling that hole in her heart. Everyone else was inside the tower, and if Zeke hadn’t made it…

No.

She wouldn’t consider that possibility. He was fine. He was always okay. And the others would be safe in the tower, too. They had to be.

With that in mind, Talia settled in the shadow of a half-fallen building located at the edge of what used to be the city. She didn’t sleep, though. Instead, she merely meditated, trying her best to clear her mind, and like that, the night passed.

The next morning dawned, much the same as always. However, she soon realized something she hadn’t noticed before. As the destructive energies of Zeke’s path had dissipated, mana had come rushing back into the area. However, it was not the same, death-attuned mana that had once covered Darukar. Instead, it was suffused with vitality.

That was when she saw something she had never expected.

The great, green pillar of vitality that once marked the dungeon was now gone. Presumably, the dungeon itself had been destroyed as well. It should have been obvious, and if she’d let herself recognize it, she might have seen it the day before. But now? She could only gape at the lack.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” came a smooth voice that she’d never expected to hear again.

Talia whipped around to see a man she had not seen in years, but one whose face she would never forget. He was still thin and acerbic, but his complexion had grown waxy and even paler than in her memories. But he was still recognizable.

“I thought you were dead.”

“Undead, actually,” he said, running a hand through his lank hair. “All that time spent on your mother’s quest, and I managed to learn a few things. More importantly, he discovered a very interesting skill.”

“This…this isn’t real…I saw you die.”

“Did you? I certainly felt dead,” he said. “Imagine my surprise when –”

Talia didn’t hesitate any further. The moment she’d laid eyes on the man, she had embraced [Unliving Speed] and [Inevitability], though she didn’t wait to activate any other skills before attacking.

She threw herself forward, heedless of her still fractured bones. Rarely did she feel true rage, and when she did, it was always muted. Not so, when she saw the man who had haunted her dreams for so long. It was white hot, and it manifested in a thirst for his death.

He never even had a chance to move before Talia rammed her claws through his chest. His torso exploded into a puff of meat, bone, and blood, and she watched as the light went out in his eyes.

He fell.

But distressingly, she felt no influx of kill energy to announce his death.

She didn’t know how he’d managed it – both before and now – but Abraham Micayne, the man who was most responsible for her transformation into one of the undead, was still alive.