"Let's see how long your life force can burn," Kael mocks. His chains lunge at Ethan like serpents, aiming for his arms and legs.

Ethan swings his blade at a speed that breaks the sound barrier with each redirection. He deflects each of Kael's blades, sending them to the sides. The green mist covering them stops the blades of Ether he propels. He leans forward and bursts through Kael's attack, deflecting away the serrated chains that come his way.

Kael retreats, his smirk faltering. The bone spikes shoot towards Ethan through the tunnel of chains.

Relying on Prescience, Ethan cuts through the spikes in consecutive blows, shattering them. The mist that surrounded them grazes Ethan; it burns the outer layer of his coat like acid. Patches of the dark cloth cover melt away to reveal the underlying leather.

Kael's chains pull back to spiral in front of him. The force puppeteering his body pulls him away, dragging him backward to escape Ethan's reach. The mist thickens around the chains, forming a wall of gaseous acid.

The mist didn't explode when struck, convincing Ethan he won't risk a secondary explosion. He pries the flames from his blade and gathers them into his left hand, willing them into a fireball. In normal circumstances, a fireball would be dangerous to use in such an enclosed space. But, as experience showed, life force gives it a different behavior. As Ethan hurls it forward, his spell turns into an ionizing beam of light.

Kael's eyes widen as he amalgamates the chains to intercept. The scorching ray collides with the spiraling chains, the impact bellowing with a roaring shockwave.

The outer explosion consumes the wall of mist while its core pierces through the chains like a melting sabot round. It stabs through his chest and vaporizes a hole through his lower abdomen.

Kael's chains writhe like living creatures in pain, each losing more than half of its length where the spell pulverized links. Kael grits his teeth, his face taking on for the first time a human expression – fury.

Ethan's blade coats with blue fire as he restores his spell and swings for Kael's head. His speed overwhelms the man, and he slices through Kael's neck before following with his shoulders.

The chains whirlwind around Kael, forcing Ethan back before his next strike aimed at bisecting Kael's torso. The man's head and arms tumble through the air, and yet he stands upright, ignoring the pain of his burning flesh. His body distorts and explodes, propelling each of his bones like a grenade. The gore projectiles shed into sharp weapons – ribs to scythes, long bones to spikes, flat and irregular bones to spiked fragments.

'I need the regent alive,' Ethan thinks. He extends his hand and casts a shield around the explosion, trapping the projectiles. It shakes under their combined impact and their ricochets on its inner surface.

The bones seem alive, bouncing in the shield with unwavering speed.

Still drawing on his life force, Ethan wills the shield to shrink. It closes in on the bones until they are left with too little space to fly. He crushes them against one another, breaking the weapons Kael made of them.

The coldness that crept along Ethan's spine and brain recedes as Kael's bones stop struggling.

Ethan unsummons his shield and swallows the pile of crushed bones with the last of his blue flames. Their form vanishing, he stops using life force and his abilities, leaving his body drained. Burning any more life force would risk sending him into a coma. The combined backlash of overloading Strengthening and using life force brings him to one knee. Breathing heavily, Ethan leans on his blade to steady himself.

The regent strides towards Thea and grabs her by the arm. He lifts it over her shoulder and walks off, dragging her in her unconscious state.

Ethan casts a debilitating hex on him, stopping him in his tracks. His heart protests the use of Ether with a stabbing pain, reducing the hex's power.

Thea falls back alongside her brother's corpse as the regent lacks the strength to hold her.

The regent barks, "How are you even moving? Do you know who I am?!"

Ethan forces himself to stand, his legs and arms still drained and sluggish. Heat radiates from his skin as anger tries to take hold of his mind. He asks, "Where is Caelum Cindralis? Where is your master?!"

"You underestimate my loyalty, peasant!" the regent barks. He struggles to move his left hand to a pouch in his coat. Even without predator's sight, Ethan can see the regent's veins pulsating at a racing pace. He isn't on a prideful rant; he wants to anger Ethan, so he won't notice his next move.

"Regicide doesn't speak well of one's loyalty." Ethan tries to trigger Prescience, but his heart bursts with pain and refuses to draw in any more Ether than for his hex. He visualizes Dark Fate to summon and throw the dagger at the regent's wrist but is taken aback by a whine.

Russ squeals inside of Ethan's shadow – the kind of sound he only makes when faced with something new and terrifying.

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'Russ, heel,' Ethan commands.

Russ leaps out of Ethan's shadow and growls at it, as if something else was on the other side.

A layer of shadowed mist rises from the ground, bubbling around Ethan's feet.

Ethan dashes away, Russ following, and readies his blade for something lunging at him. He loathes his inability to see in that shadowed realm. He thinks, 'Maybe if I use Soulsight; but right now, I can't while maintaining my hex. When will you die?!'

Ethan's thoughts are cut abruptly as the regent exhales as if stabbed. Ethan looks back at the man to see the regent's face and hands wither. He falls to the ground, his body dried of all moisture.

The blackened mist falls back into the ground, vanishing from sight.

The prince, his head hanging from his broken neck, steps out from behind the regent. His childish voice mocks, "I almost forgot to kill him on my way out. Who would trust such a coward to keep his mouth shut? I'm sure a little torture would have done the trick."

His hex broken by the regent's death, Ethan summons his dagger and throws it at the prince's body. It impales him through the chest and throws him to the ground. The wrongness of the sight twists Ethan's guts. He growls, "How many times do I need to kill you?"

"Who knows?" Kael quips, shrugging the corpse's shoulders. His voice grows weaker, as if he was moving away. "I'm not in a hurry to find out. Take care of your body; I want it intact the next time we meet."

'Predator's sight,' Ethan thinks. Only Thea's and Russ' heartbeats come through; the prince, regent, and captain are dead. Apprehending Kael taking over another body, Ethan pulls out his dagger and sets the three corpses ablaze. He throws a fireball at the entrance, scorching the corpses of the captain's subordinates for the same reason.

The mechanism of this place doesn't show any sign of slowing down, as if its content were rising from extremely deep underground. Ethan crosses his arms, waiting.

"Melee Weapon (Long Sword) leveled up (x4). Life force manipulation leveled up," the system announces.

Russ sits beside Ethan and rubs his head against his thigh. He looks up with worried eyes.

'I know, buddy; the fact that he knows One's and my father's face has me worried. Caelum will be warned that I'm after him,' Ethan mentally says to Russ. 'I've to warn Tombstone about it; she needs to ensure the mansion can't lead him back to N.E.S.T. and watch for anyone looking into One.'

Russ whines, pointing with his nose at Ethan's hand. A white glow appeared at the tip of his fingers, slowly creeping up them. A gray window appears in front of Ethan.

The Realm of Ascension is summoning you.

'Not now!' Ethan curses. He looks around for anything that would have appeared, but only finds moving stones. 'Shadow,' he orders, hoping Russ will be teleported with him.

Thea coughs out blood, her fingers curling into a fist as she blinks her eyes open. She shields her eyes from the light taking over Ethan's hand. With a gulp of her own blood, Thea rises to her knees, her gaze falling on her brother's broken, burning corpse.

'I can't leave the vault's contents here,' Ethan thinks. He approaches her, unsummoning his blade. 'Kael or Caelum will come back for them. And if she takes them, even if the guard protects her, he will take it from her. She needs to flee to a place where he'll never think of looking for her.'

Thea clutches at the ground, her fingernails scraping against the stone floor as she chokes on a sob. Her blurred gaze flickers between her brother and the remains of Kael's chains.

'She won't follow my idea unless I give her a reason to,' Ethan thinks. He looks to the side, weighing the risks. 'Then she should go to him, where we'll be able to create a trap using what he desires.'

Thea's shaking intensifies as the flames of the pyres reflect in her glassy eyes. Her body sways, the weight of the situation overwhelming her.

"Take whatever is in this vault and go to Kingsreach; that's where I'll head next. If my information is right, that's where Caelum is," Ethan whispers. He hopes Kael cannot hear him. If he's listening, it will make setting up a trap infinitely more difficult. And that would be ignoring the fact he could ambush her on the way. "Do not tell anyone where you are going. Do not get help from anyone you already know; they will torture them to know where you went."

Thea looks up from her brother's body and then towards her father's burning corpse. Her eyes are bloodshot red, tears streaming down her face. Her body shudders, her mind unable to accept the situation.

The light climbs to Ethan's shoulders. He doesn't know for sure that she's listening to him. He grabs her by the shoulders and repeats, "Take the vault's contents; go to Kingsreach – capital of Valloria – I'll find you there. Do you hear me?!"

Thea looks up to him, her shaking hands still hovering over her brother's corpse. She stammers, "They are all dead."

Ethan's jaw tightens. He knows her pain, her loss – a wound that will not heal until their murderer draws his last breath. But he doesn't have time to console her; he wouldn't know how anyway. "They are gone," he says. "And the man who did this is still alive. You've one chance to make him pay; meet me in Kingsreach."

Thea's breath hitches as she stares at him. Her eyes fill with anger, directed at Kael's mangled remains. She asks, "It's a nightmare; you are in my mind!" Thea grabs her blade from the ground and stands.

Ethan grabs her sword by the guard, stopping her from swinging. "It's not. He's gone, for now."

Thea punches Ethan in the face.

Ethan lets her hit him, but he rolls his head with the punch, reducing the impact's force to near nothingness. He says, "I'm sorry for what happened, but if you don't listen to me, they will find you, and you'll be next."

Thea's grief turns into fury as she lunges at Ethan. She swings her arm with reckless abandon, her strikes fueled by raw emotion.

Ethan sidesteps and deflects her attack with his forearm. Moving away from her, he pries her blade away from her grasp and, not wanting to be teleported with it, drops it.

"Release me!" she screams, throwing another punch at Ethan's chest.

'Leave it,' Ethan commands, hearing Russ growling in his mind. Ethan catches her wrist mid-swing, holding it firmly but not tightly enough to hurt her. He whispers, "I'm sorry; I know how you feel and that there is nothing I can say that would help."

"Unhand me!" She struggles against his grip, tears streaming down her face. She throws her left fist at his face, but he catches it with ease.

"You can avenge them if you help me," Ethan says. He lowers her left hand away from his face. The light climbs up to his neck, threatening to swallow him in seconds. He says, "I can't undo what happened, but I can give you the man who did this to you."

She goes still for a moment, her chest heaving as she glares at him. Strength leaves her, and she collapses against him, her sobs muffled against his chest.

"You need to take the vault's contents and leave. Go to Kingsreach; I'll find you there. We'll make them pay," Ethan assures. She falls to her knees as his body vanishes, his vision taken by a blinding light.