When Jack heard the scream, a chill ran down his spine. The flare of orange light and sudden heat that accompanied the sound made him turn his head away from the widening opening in the shadow fire barrier. There was a loud crash followed by an explosion, then another. In his gut, a sense of impeding dread burned like a seed of disaster blooming into true calamity. He didn’t understand why, but he had to pass through the barrier now.

Hurry up! He urged his skill and the Logos Core. The anxiety of listening to the battle taking place, the smell of blood and ashes through the opening, and the mounting dread drove his mind into a near-panic. I have to get in there!

The frenzy stirred the dormant fragments of memory deep in his mind. Scenes of desolate battlefields blasted up from the depths of his subconscious. With them, a sinister feeling crept through the storm of memories: failure.

That horrid feeling clawed its way to the center of its chest sinking its icy nails into his Logos Core. He gasped as a chill ran through his entire body. His blood felt like an artic wind howling through his veins and gooseflesh raced up and down his limbs. In his chest, the Logos Core’s faint glow brightened shedding radiance that pushed against the shadow fire and the darkness around him. The feeling left its mark on his heart and climbed ever higher. He felt it in his throat, on his tongue, then scraping against his clenched teeth.

Like a tormented revenant, Jack screamed while the Logos Core in his chest shined with the light of a nascent star. The blue radiance came in pulsing bursts that rose and fell every few seconds. Before he knew it, instinct led him forward and his foot just barely rose above the shadow fire.

He stepped into the room.

The scene in front of him was dismal. A few meters away, two bodies rested with the ashes of the fallen world. One was a young woman whose severed head lay next to the body of an even younger-looking man. The man, or possibly a boy, was missing an arm along with a portion of his shoulder. Both died with their eyes open and full of regret from the looks of it.

The sight fueled the demon of failure agonizing Jack with its presence. He didn’t even know these people, but seeing them there hurt. It wasn’t their deaths or even their age that, but the implicit futility and despair on their faces, frozen like a mask representing their final moments. It felt sickeningly familiar and he hated it.

Another explosion drew his attention to the center of the room, just in time to see a flaming figure go flying into the far wall. She cried out and somehow landed on her feet. The woman’s flames flickered multiple times settling on a dull glow as she shakily lifted her ax into a ready position. Closer to Jack, a towering knight clad in black plate regarded her and turned its attention to him. At that moment, a powerful yet tired voice called from the darkness.

“Another loathsome scavenger slinks into our hall trampling upon the ashes of our people. You have come to your death, warrior.”

The knight sent a wave of shadow flying at the flaming woman. She dodged, just barely, but instead of moving out of the way, her legs gave out from under her and she fell to her knees leaving the attack to cut into the wall. Dust and bits of debris showered her making the flames flicker once more.

The knight turned its attention to Jack. For a second, he sensed a strange kinship with the titan. He used the slight lapse to identify the creature.

Dangerous. The word and the sentiment that came with it superimposed itself over his thoughts. He moved his foot back pivoting to the side and settled into a more defensive stance. His eyes flicked from the darkness from which the voice had come to the Shadowtitan Knight to the shadow fire barrier which was gradually reconstituting itself to seal the hole he’d opened up. He hesitated for a second and the feeling of failure still clinging to his insides jumped at the opportunity.

“You can’t do it… You’ve been defeated so many times. Retreat! You can’t die here.” The mental demon called wrapping its claws around his throat. “It’s alright to know your limits, Jack.”

No, he thought, gritting his teeth. He hated this feeling. It weighed his breath down in his throat and twisted his gut. The whir of the Logos Core resonated in his ears like a mournful song. His gaze jumped from one point to another while his hands squeezed the hilt of the Shadowsteel Blade-Conduit as though his life depended on it. The Shadowtitan Knight walked toward him, its sword ready at its side. I… I…

Suddenly, the black-armored creature stopped midway toward him. Both Jack and it looked at the ground near its feet. There, bleeding, a nearly bisected creature that looked to be a mix of snake and man grabbed the heel of the knight’s boot. The snake-man released a weak gurgle and bit into the black armor. The sound of fangs scrapping again metal spread through the room.

It was a pitiful sight. The knight regarded the snake-man for a moment then plunged its sword into his head. At that moment, a hot sensation rose from Jack’s gut battling against the feeling of failure. The emotion was familiar but he couldn’t place its meaning exactly. The two raged within him for the space of a breath. In the resulting chaos, a single sound filled Jack’s mind, one that brought dread and strangely, anticipation.

A chime and it was followed by three simple words that carried more meaning than he could comprehend.

“Will you fight?”

He saw everything in the room: the corpses of strangers, the woman struggling to her feet wreathed in sputtering flames, the withered figure on the throne in the darkness, and finally, the Shadowtitan Knight.

Before he could think of an answer, his body was moving. The Shadowsteel Blade-Conduit radiated blue light from a fresh charge of Logos. The knight met his advance having all but disregarded the woman yet to regain her bearings, but when it moved, Jack realized how out of his league he was. To his low Focus, the plate-clad titan looked like little more than a blur, and its blade phased in the darkness making its position difficult to judge.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, barely giving him a warning of an impending attack. From below, the tip of a sword was thrust toward his chest. If his eyes had time to widen, they would have. The Shadowtitan Knight was using the same technique as the Whipshade Warriors to attack through shadows. He should’ve expected as much, but he hadn’t and the point veering toward his chest would hit. He couldn’t move fast enough to intercept it or dodge it with eleven Agility.

Despite that, he summoned every bit of speed, strength, and willpower that he could to move his blade fast enough. He even leveraged his Logos Core for assistance using Logos Manipulation to tug the Logos-charged blade-conduit in the hopes of accelerating the weapon. Still, he knew that it wouldn’t be enough. He needed more.

Time moved ground to a near-halt in the second after the shadowsteel blade emerged from the shadows in front of him. The Shadowtitan Knight hadn’t stopped moving forward either. Even now, it was mid-step toward him while its sword hung low by its side, the blade of the weapon partially submerged in a pool of darkness spreading from its feet.

Again, the chime sounded, louder than before, and again, the voice asked the question.

“Will you fight?”

I’m trying! It’s not enough! He screamed into the void of his mind where the voice originated. The two raging emotions sent chills and hot flashes through his muscles and skin making the moment that seemed to stretch onward for eternity a prison of torment. He was doing everything he could, but it was making no difference. He was too slow, too weak, and too inexperienced.

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The wrath of failure battling inside of him feasted on his doubt. Fear lingered in its shadow as Jarkal’s warning echoed through the mental storm. The feeling of failure grabbed his throat pulling him down toward the Shadowtitan Knight’s blade.

This is your limit, Jack, it whispered as he neared the edge of oblivion. The tip of the blade pricked his chest, just above the Logos Core.

An end like this; he couldn’t accept it. To the fiery emotion opposing his failures, he offered his hope, his will to survive, and his desire to fight. Heat battled cold driving the agony to new levels until finally, something broke. The battle within ceased instantly with the sound of a chime.

Familiar calm fell into the stilled chaos of his mindscape. A voice, simultaneously his own and not, responded to the failure shattering the scene and freeing Jack from the grip of his inner demons.

“I have no limitations.”

Time resumed its normal pace all at once, but the tip of the shadowsteel blade did not spear through Jack’s chest. All at once, he shifted his weight by pivoting to the side and using Logos Manipulation to pull his blade toward the ground and accelerate the motion. The sword sliced a thin line across the top of his chest nearly nicking his collarbone before gouging a chunk of flesh out of his right as he tried to move that arm out of the way by letting go of his sword.

As soon as his Shadowsteel Blade-Conduit was in position, he drove upward with it straining his knee in the process as the joint supported his entire body weight. The Shadowtitan Knight’s weapon disappeared as it sunk back into the shadows and its other hand swung toward his head with a vicious hook. He ducked, barely managing it thanks to his downward momentum. The swish of displaced air brushed past his neck assured him that the gauntleted fist could have fractured his skull had it connected.

After his hair-thin dodge, the knight was slightly off-balance giving him an opening to strike. He drove the blade-conduit down into the creature’s boot, right in the talus region of the foot where the metal curved upward. The Logos coursing through his blade’s solarite channels erupted from the point. The origin-class energy carved through the thin layer of armor covering the joint and blasted through the other side. When it made contact with the pool of shadows, the darkness was temporarily repelled before the Logos dispersed.

The metal followed the energy’s path and as soon as he felt resistance, Jack wrenched his entire body to the side attempting to compound the injury that he had just inflicted. Sadly, he couldn’t complete the maneuver because a swift kick from the knight sent him tumbling several meters away. He was nearly impaled on his sword twice before he came to a stop.

Jack rose unsteadily coughing from the ashes that covered his body and filled his mouth and nose. His eyes quickly found the dark silhouette of the Shadowtitan Knight who tried to step toward him before it buckled when its injured foot couldn’t hold its weight. The two of them were still for a few moments, each reevaluating the other.

In the brief respite, Jack pieced together a basic plan. He didn’t understand what was happening to him, but his fear and doubt had been replaced with serene focus. He would defeat the foe before him. Despite his resolve, a quick check of his Ethos didn’t bring good news. The two attacks from the knight had inflicted over three hundred damage bringing his Ethos to just above five hundred and it ticked down every couple of seconds as he watched. The reason didn’t take long to identify.

The cut going across his chest and the chunk missing from his arm writhed with wisps of shadow that seemed to eat away at the wounds. Alarmingly, he felt nothing from it even though the ache in his side where the knight kicked him ensured that he still felt pain. No doubt the insidious energy would’ve gone completely unnoticed if he hadn’t had the time to check his wound.

This needs to go, he decided. Immediately, he activated Logos Bloodforging, and like before, his blood took on a blue glow as it flowed over wisps of darkness extinguishing them like candles in the rain. Fifteen seconds later, he stopped when he saw the Shadowtitan Knight move. He hadn’t gotten all of the wisps, but the drain on his Ethos had slowed significantly.

His foe stood showing that it hadn’t wasted the respite either. Its injured leg was covered in a sheathe of dark energy which seemed to support it. Off to the side, Jack noticed the woman wreathed in dying flames had resumed a shaky fighting stance. She was looking directly at him, but he couldn’t make out her expression due to her distance, the darkness, and his low Focus.

Hey, he said to his Logos Core. I know you can understand me somehow. If we’re going to make it out of this, I need your help again just like with the shadow fire barrier. Can you help?

He sent his intentions along with the message hoping his plan worked. Almost as soon as he finished, a familiar notification appeared. A toothy smile spread across his face.

With a thought, he accepted and recharged his Shadowsteel Blade-Conduit. He stepped forward into a strong stance. His blade sliced through the air hitting nothing, but a crescent of Logos sped toward his opponent. The knight answered with a sword wave of its own comprised of billowing darkness. The two clashed as Jack expected, the Logos started to overpower its counterpart despite the other being near twice its size.

Origin-class energy, huh? He thought upon seeing a clear demonstration of the energy’s potency. He torqued at the waist bringing his sword back around to release another slash before refilling the solarite channels once again. The armored titan matched his movement sending forth another wave as well; however, after the second slash, Jack switched stances. His wrist flicked as his blade sliced through the air six times in half as many seconds. The sword waves unleashed by his flurry wouldn’t hit the Shadowtitan Knight, but they were never meant to in the first place.

Now! He called to his Logos Core.

As soon as he gave the signal, the crescent waves of Logos curved in the air. Their trajectories intersected causing them to smash into each other. Instead of clashing, the energies melded changing shape from crescent waves to a brilliant orb that hovered above like a miniature, blue sun. The light burned away at the pool of shadows at the knight’s feet and banished the darkness within a ten-meter radius of the orb. To his delight, the dark sheath around his enemy’s leg wavered causing the massive humanoid to stumble for a fraction of a second before stabilizing.

He barely felt any mental strain from the creation of the light source, but his chest tightened and his breathing became slightly more difficult. Resisting the urge to touch his Logos Core, he recharged his blade-conduit.

This must be hard for you, he thought to the strange World Core. That didn’t surprise him since according to his Status, it wasn’t even fully awakened yet. He sent the breadth of his gratitude to the Logos Core for good measure. If they perished to defeat their foe, he wanted his comrade to know how much he appreciated it at least. I hope we get to have a proper conversation after this.

Then, they advanced. Instead of charging, each drew closer to the other, blades at the ready. The woman lowered herself seemingly getting ready to join the fray despite her poor condition. On the surface, this was an idiotic decision by Jack since the knight’s reach drastically outstripped his own. However, he accounted for this as well.

When he stepped into his foe’s range, the orb above suddenly veered into the knight’s face pulsing brightly for a second. At the same time, Jack released two quick slashes at the dark sheathe encompassing its leg before rolling toward its flank as it swung its blade in a horizontal arc that could’ve bisected him.

The sword waves of Logos impacted the knight’s leg making its stance buckle right as Jack struck out from a crouching position. Even then, the knight lashed out with its fist bringing it down like a club toward his head. At that moment, the calm focus gave way to nostalgia and confidence. He twisted, barely avoiding another devastating blow, and lunged upward with his blade held in a reverse grip. The shadowsteel left a trail of blue light from the Logos that he pumped into the solarite channels. The fist brushed past his shoulder and he brought his blade around causing the flat to slide across the surface of the knight’s gauntlet. He grabbed the hilt of Shadowsteel Blade-Conduit with his other hand levering his strength and the momentum of his foe’s strike. The edge burned bright as it made contact with the interlocking plate at the joint of the inner elbow.

Jack roared dragging the slash along the joint as he stepped past. Once more, his Logos showed its potency sheering into the thinner section of metal and making way for the blade’s edge to score across the titan’s hard bone.

The Shadowtitan Knight groaned in pain. Its arm hung limp at the elbow while it brought its sword around in a wild slash at Jack’s side. He kept moving though. Although his Agility was only eleven, he always avoided the brunt of the knight’s attacks by the thinnest margin. Despite his low Focus, he never missed the subtle twitch of the knight’s body or the motion of its sword in the radiant blue light. Lastly, no matter how strong the shadowtitan was, he always managed to take advantage of or divert the powerful strikes that he couldn’t avoid.

Jack didn’t think about any of the close calls or damage he continued to take from various glancing blows. His mind focused on other things like the sensation of the blade in his hand, the flow of battle coursing through his veins, and his enemy’s next move. Whatever situation present itself in his dance of death with the knight, he acted with certainty and his body reacted like he’d practiced the maneuvers a thousand times. In this state, he swayed, slashed, dodged, and struggled with such single-minded concentration that he took no notice of the notifications echoing through his still mind like the clamor of a grand cathedral’s bell.