We reach for reality, then hesitate. Doubt poisons our mind. Zyneth’s lightning can dissipate our void—weaken us. Maybe we shouldn’t fight. Maybe we should stay here. If we stay here for just a few moments longer, the portal will be closed, and then—

No! We hiss, shaking off the intrusive thoughts as we dive for reality. The exit is narrowing, closing right in front of Zyneth as he stands, waiting, guarding the rapidly diminishing portal. We form our limbs into needle-like claws, spearing toward the exit. Zyneth raises a blade, ready to sever our hand and stop us from escaping—

And he stays the blow.

We grab the boundary, and it cuts into our essence as we tear it wide and throw ourself through. Zyneth swears as we go rolling across the stone, bristling in a defensive ball of spikes and blades. The portal shuts behind us.

“I’m sorry, Kanin,” Zyneth says. “I know you would have wanted it, but I couldn’t trap you there.”

We gather ourself to our full height. Twice the size of the cambion, all shadow and sharp edges. Our hunger manifests in our void, forming a maw, glass shards aligning in the shape of teeth, empty sockets of smoke where any other creature would have eyes. Our surroundings smell of salt and stone. The air tastes wet and metallic. Ahh, how we’ve missed taste and smell. The sensations fill us with euphoria.

But with it, the hunger continues to gnaw at us.

Our new memories tell us we had worked out a deal with our soul—it let us eat away at its magic to sustain our presence in reality. But now, with so much of us here, we’ll need more than scraps of magic to keep us grounded. Luckily, the dozens of souls we’re carrying in us now should feed us for quite some time.

We look at Zyneth, and he tenses. We’d also agreed not to hurt him. But we don’t see the benefit to maintaining that deal. One more soul in our collection is more valuable than alliances. Ichor drips from our jaws like drool.

“That said.” The lightning dancing over Zyneth’s blades grows erratic, shifting from yellow to white-hot. “I don’t plan to die today, either.”

We strike, a blur of shadows, bolting straight for Zyneth’s chest. He stabs his arm forward at the same time, despite us being far out of his reach.

Lightning erupts through us before we even know we’ve been struck. It sears through our essence, blasting a hole through our void as it disperses all the shadows in a giant hole around our torso, exposing the unscathed glass beneath. We shriek, reforming our void, but Zyneth has made a miscalculation. While his lightning may be able to temporarily peel away our magic, it does not hurt us, nor does it slow us down. Our claws crash into him the next moment, wrapping around his sparking knives as our weight slams him into the ground.

We stab a spear of void toward his chest, but he uses the momentum of the fall to roll away, static discharge rolling over his body to evaporate any of our tendrils that get too close.

An inconvenience, but we have more than just the void to fight with, now.

We levitate the broken shards of glass that used to be an arm, though the movement seems to resist us. It’s not as natural as controlling the void, and we need complete concentration—complete cooperation—to use the ability to its full potential. We stamp out the part of us that’s holding back, force it into compliance. There. Easier. We shatter the arm into a dozen blades of glass, which we orient in an array pointed at Zyneth.

He comes out of his roll, gaze flickering over our newest weapon with a grimace. “Shit.”

We send the shards flying. He stumbles back, arms a blur, and we feel several pieces of glass shatter beneath his whirlwind of blades.

As we’re launching this attack, the structure near us groans. We pause, tipping our head at the peculiar sound, flipping through memories like flash cards as we search for context. The structure—yes, the Prismatic—is shuttering to life, its many limbs reaching for the ocean once more. It’s being brought to life by Gillow.

Gillow.

Hatred catches us off guard. Oh, how we wish to crush that one. How we will savor their soul. The fear in their eyes as we extract our revenge. The ship begins to drag itself across the stone, metal shrieking as it scrapes over the surface, and we reach out with our void, grabbing one of its tentacles and yanking it back. The whole ship lurches toward us, a toy in a child’s grasp.

Now, how to get inside? We could crack it open like an egg, spilling its delicious contents. There are openings—windows—too. We pull the ship closer, vines of void splitting off to quest over the ship and find our prey.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

A sharp hiss and vents of steam erupt from the side of the ship. We pause, confused by this new development. This wasn’t in our memories. We curiously reach for the shape on the side of the ship that is making noise—that is flickering with more magic than the rest of the craft—when it abruptly rips itself from the side of the ship, splattering through our void as it blasts away from the Prismatic. The craft—the escape pod—rockets across the stoney ground, bouncing and rolling until it impacts the wall of water. And then it’s gone, vanished into the ocean.

We hiss in anger. Escaped! Fled from us! No, we will not be outsmarted by them. We gather our void around us, recalling how we’ve braved these waters before. We will hunt them down and eviscerate their craft.

But first, we can already feel our power waning. We already need to consume another soul—not to mention, there’s still one here yet to harvest.

We round on Zyneth, and he grimaces as we turn to face him.

“Was sort of hoping you’d forgotten about me,” he says. “Don’t suppose you can still be reasoned with? I’d much rather expend this limited air supply on figuring out how to get out of—”

We rip our void away from the Prismatic with a frustrated roar, stabbing it toward Zyneth. He skips away, slashing through the vines of black as they near him.

Why do they fight? Why don’t they understand how pathetic their struggle really is? Enough. We don’t have time for such play. It’s time to end this.

Once more wrangling the glass into cooperation, we infuse our next spears of void with dozens of razor-sharp shards of glass, and likewise launch these at our prey. As usual, he slashes through the attacks, his lightning dissipating the void.

But the glass continues to fly forward on its original trajectory.

Three shards strike his legs, stabbing into meat and bone, as a fourth slices through his arm, sending one of his blades clattering to the ground. Zyneth hisses out a growl as he slips to one knee, clutching his arm to his chest as he doubles over in pain. Too easy. We move in for the killing blow.

Our shadows converge on him, despite our last, desperate protests. He put up a good fight. We will award a quick death.

Zyneth looks up at us as we close in, looming over him. There’s no fear in his eyes—only intense calculation. He pulls his injured hand away from his chest, exposing the blinding star-like blaze of his soul.

No. Wait. That is not his soul. That’s—

With a flick of his hand, Zyneth releases the compressed ball of lightning.

We try to flinch away, but there’s no time. The lightning blasts through us, dispersing our shadows as the attack illuminates the arena with a flash of light. We lose our grip on our glass, and more importantly, we lose our grip on the souls.

No! We shriek with rage, rushing to regather ourself, but the souls are already slipping away, dispersing into the world. Slamming back together in a wave of black, we grab one—two—three souls from the air, crushing them in our grasp. We can still eat these—pull enough power from this small handful to sustain us long enough to—

Zyneth slashes through our void, severing our shadows which wisp away in mere moments. Then those souls vanish, too.

Enraged, we grab his blade, yanking it from his grasp with a spray of blood. Zyneth gasps, scrambling backward as a thick trail of crimson follows. He grabs for the knife he’d dropped before, while we raise his own against him. Loathing courses through us. We seethe with a hatred like none we’ve ever known. He took all our souls from us, so we will destroy him with his own weapon, and then we’ll take his soul. That will be a fitting end for such abhorrent disrespect.

With all our strength and precision, we hurl his own knife back at him—or at least, that’s what we’d intended. Just as the knife leaves our grasp, our aim shifts to the right. The knife flies past his head, instead stabbing into a block of stone a dozen feet away. Sparks fly at the impact, filling us with relief.

Fool! We stamp out the brief flare of resistance. That meant nothing. We’re only delaying the inevitable.

Zyneth glances to where his blade struck, then back at us. Impossibly, he’s smiling. Mocking us! He snatches up his last knife, though with the injuries he’s sustained, his grasp is weak.

“You did well, Kanin,” Zyneth says as we stalk toward him. He runs a fond hand down the flat of his blade, the runes illuminating on its surface, but he must not have enough magic left for any more electric displays. Instead he aims it at our anchor—our glass heart. “You don’t have to fight it anymore.”

He must be delusional if he thinks he can destroy our core. He didn’t have the willpower to do so before, and he doesn’t have the strength now. We will savor his soul. Make it last as we tear it to shreds.

Zyneth throws the blade at our chest, his motions labored and obvious. We casually swipe the attack away, deftly catching the blade from the air. This time we will not throw it back: We will plunge it into him ourself.

The world warps. A vortex pulls at our essence, dragging bits of us away. The sensation is clawing its way up our arm, sucking us down into a cramped, dark place. We don’t understand. What’s happening?

A memory surfaces—the knife.

Our glass is bare where we’re holding the blade, all the nearby void sucked into the weapon, yet even more streamers of black twirl down into the knife as if pulled by an invisible whirlpool. We whip around, locating the other knife, still buried in the stone cube. But it’s not just a cube. We wrench memories from our depth, and new understanding blooms inside us. It’s the containment cube, and the knife is stabbed right into the center of its aperture. The void is being pulled through the blades and into the magic capsule. We try to drop the weapon, but our glass won’t let it go. Without the souls to power us, on top of losing more bits of ourself by the second, our control is waning.

It’s working. It’s actually working.

No! We won’t be dragged back into a prison again. We just escaped! And we won’t go down without a fight.

We stab several spears of void into the container, piercing the stone. Blue sparks of magic jump from the cracks.

Fear courses through us. Gillow warned us to be careful with the containment cubes. If it ruptures, it could explode.

We replace the fear with smug satisfaction. Yes. That’s the idea.

We slash another blade of void across its surface, severing the circles and runes etched in its surface.

The following blast hits everything in the arena.