“So, shall we begin?” Ewan asked, cracking his neck from side to side lazily, fixing me with his steely gaze.

I stared back silently, nervously, still well on-edge.

Internally, though, my mind was racing, working overtime to determine just what rules, precisely, governed the half-real realm which currently held me prisoner. I’d never heard of a Trial that looped one endlessly through space and time, but then, I’d barely heard tell of any, at all.

What was more concerning to me, at the moment, was the loop’s trigger. Apparently, Ewan’s realization alone was enough to end it prematurely. Somehow, I’d given him insight into just how imaginary this place actually was.

Could I do so a second time?

“Ewan…,” I started, tentatively–

“What’s this?!” my master shouted, interrupting me, jabbing a wiry finger my way to make me jump.

“Do my ears deceive? Does my mind grow dull, and foggy? Does my disciple no longer call me Master?” He narrowed his eyes at me, then raised a single bushy brow.

“Has the Vile Titan taken your flesh, boy?” He asked, suddenly serious.

I froze in place. Was…that it? Was that all it took? Would Ewan attack me now? My spine straightened and I stepped back, preparing for the onslaught that was sure to come–

Before I was interrupted by my master’s rasping chuckle.

“Hmph,” Ewan snorted, turning away from me and back towards the rack of waiting blades.

“It seems I’ve nothing to fear,” he said, grinning to himself as he selected a couple. “You’re just as humorless as ever. Even the Vile wouldn’t select such a dour host.”

I frowned, somewhat miffed despite the circumstances. Despite being facsimile, Ewan’s irksome disposition remained.

“Ewan,” I repeated, “do you know where you are, right now?”

The man himself snorted again, twirling one of the blades in his hands, making the heavy steel seem light as a feather.

“Humourless, indeed. I was jesting, boy,” he snapped. “I assure you, my mind’s still far sharper than yours.” Nodding to himself, he tossed the sword my way.

I didn’t catch it. I didn’t even raise my arm.

The flat of the blade thumped against my ribcage before falling to the ground, the rough-forged steel clattering off little pebbles embedded in the arena’s earthen ground.

Ewan stared at me for a moment, stunned.

“Do you know where you are, right now?” I asked him, deadpan and without breaking eye contact.

Ewan’s mouth opened slightly, a witty rejoinder sat just poised to exit it, but suddenly snapped shut. His brow furrowed upon me, and his head quirked to the side. For a while, it remained that way, and I thought that nothing might come of my words.

Then something in his eyes changed.

They widened almost immediately, his grip tightening upon the twin swords clasped within each palm. In eerie reprise, Ewan’s head jerked about in countless different directions, his gaze locking on to invisible minutia, anxiety turning to rage, turning to fear–

CLANG!

The jerking, tearing re-adjustment of reality came much more smoothly, this time, so seamlessly that I barely noticed the scene before me being replaced with another.

CLANG-CLANG!

For the third time, a blissfully ignorant Ewan twirled and pivoted gracefully about his inanimate opponent. For the third time, my master was remade anew.

“Ho,” Ewan greeted me, with what was becoming a customary grunt and a frown. “The mighty hero arrives at last,” He sighed deeply, tossing his beleaguered armament to the side and wiping his dripping brow. “Late for his own examination.”

“So, shall we begin?”

This time, I made no attempt to reply.

Ewan just shrugged lightly, starting off towards the ever-present rack of shining fresh blades to make his selection. My brow furrowed as I stared at his retreating form. Whatever confusion I might’ve suffered prior had evaporated. This was not reality. No, this entire place, whatever it really was, was the staging ground for my Trial to the Marble stage.

But…how was I meant to pass it?

Ewan’s scrunching footsteps interrupted my musing, and I just managed to catch the blade he tossed my way, frowning down at it as I did so. I glanced up, and saw Ewan settle into an easy stance.

To defeat my master in a duel? Could it be as simple as that?

“Two strikes, disciple” Ewan barked, smirking, body coiled and ready to release. “Land but two strikes upon me, and the match is yours.”

My brow remained furrowed as I took in his words. They were, in a sense, darkly ironic.

Ewan’s challenge was no different than it had ever been. Each time we dueled, during each one of my yearly examinations, it would be the same. Two strikes. A taunt, followed inevitably by grueling contest, a set of laughably one-sided duels in which my master danced circles around me for hours.

Each time, it would end the same way.

I’d become more and more frustrated, more and more tired, never managing to land a single hit upon my somehow mundane master. Ewan would naught but laugh at my best efforts, smirking his trademark smirk, and say ‘Better luck next year, then, disciple?’

Or something to that effect.

True to his nature, Ewan grinned at me wolfishly from across the earthen arena. Doubtless, he thought he already knew what the outcome would be.

But he was wrong. I might not have practiced much over the past two months, but I had changed.

I hefted the slab of impure steel and rough wood now in my hand, feeling out its balance, testing it with a couple easy swipes as I made my way towards my opponent. For a self-taught smith, Ewan wasn’t half bad. The blade was light and more or less evenly weighted. The sword itself, while bereft of flourishes, engravings, or embellishments, lacked equally in all but the most subtle imperfections in its metal, and its haft was thick and sturdy.

Ewan made no attempt to halt my impromptu practice, simply regarding me with a raised, expectant eyebrow. We were scarcely five paces apart.

I cracked my neck, easing myself from side to side gently, stretching my legs and rolling my shoulders. The dry, dusty ground crunched and grated, partially frictionless beneath my feet. I felt loose, limber, well rested. Despite the past few months having been anything but peaceful, it’d been a while since I’d truly dueled a proper opponent.

I took a deep breath, in and out.

“That’s it boy,” Ewan encouraged. “Start with the breath. Everything begins with the breath.”

I allowed his words to soothe me, calmly settling into my stance. I adopted a high guard to match his, relaxing unnecessary muscles. As all signs of life, from wind to bird to burning hearth were absent. The only thing I heard in the absolute silence were those sounds we, ourselves, produced.

The subtle ripples in our shifting fabrics. The rasping of dirt displaced by our footfalls. The gentle beating of my own heart.

And, though the song had long been absent in this place, I thought that I might, just, barely hear…something.

It came from within, this time, an ever-so-soft pulse from somewhere deep beneath my chest. Not my soul, no, for that was barred from me. Something deeper still. Something I’d always had, since birth.

A second, sacred heart.

Despite Flash Step’s brutal demise, I could almost feel the Lightning flicker and gutter in my veins.

“That’s it, boy,” Ewan repeated, still whispering. “You h–,”

I struck.

Muscles snapped and fired, articulating themselves with fervor and precision reminiscent of a power I no longer possessed, moving faster than should have been possible for a mundane. My body crossed the scant distance between us as if shot from a bow, my sword snapping down with the ease and inevitability of countless slain foes. Ewan’s eyes widened, and his arms blurred.

But he was too slow.

THUD.

His response came too late. My sword’s dull edge rebounded off the thick leather of his right shoulder, causing my master to draw sharp breath and stagger back. To his credit, Ewan righted himself in an instant, stomping down and adopting a mid guard as confusion and disbelief contorted his normally inscrutable features.

“Y–,”

“Thank you for granting me the first strike, Master,” I said, bowing as I interrupted him. “But you need not be so lenient.” I regarded him sharply, interested as to what his response to my barbs might be, curious if the loop would restart again.

“No longer am I the boy you knew,” I hinted, closely examining his response.

Ewan stared at me for a moment, his mouth slightly open, at a loss for words. Would he break free of the loop, once more?

Slowly, deliberately, a deep, rumbling laugh surfaced from the belly of Ewan’s lean chest. His shoulders trembled and the tip of his blade quivered as an unusual mirth boomed forth from my master’s diminutive form.

“Well, well,” Ewan chuckled as a savage smile slowly crept across his weathered face. “Perhaps age has made me soft. Perhaps time’s passage has worried my wits and wearied my mind. Why, my own student was able to keep secret his progress from me.”

His voice was an eager growl, his demeanor shifting from grudging tutor to keen adversary.

“No matter,” he growled eagerly, adopting a stance I’d not seen him use before, one he’d certainly never taught me.

His body flowed like little raindrops twisting themselves as they tumbled gracefully to earth, falling from petal to petal, beautifully contorted not by any innate propulsion, but by the miniscule eddies of air. His arms arranged themselves in a queer but balanced manner, his musculature taut, yet relaxed.

“A boy you may be no longer, my disciple,” Ewan admitted. “But you’re not yet a man. Not yet. The first strike is yours. Well done.”

“Now, it’s my turn.”

Ewan took a leisurely step towards me in that awkward, rippling stance of his.

I bent my knees, shifted my hips, and compressed my lips into a fine line. I narrowed my eyes, tracing the edges of his form, and blade, watching closely for sudden movement.

Ewan flickered.

Instincts sharpened from days of constant combat and honed by the memory of Sensory Projection screamed out at me, and I whipped my sword to the right, bringing it about to defend.

But nothing came.

My master’s sword glimmered eerily, refracting the sun’s light at queer angles, moving in a way mundane steel never should. It approached me from everywhere at once, and I panicked. I mistakenly attempted to ping Bullet Time, forgetting it no longer existed, and backpedaled furiously.

It was no use. A flash of pain lit up my gut.

I cried out, more from shock than agony, and crumpled to my knees, dropping the blade, gasping for air.

“What–what was that?!” I croaked up at Ewan with the breath knocked out of me.

My master just grinned down at me superlatively, twirling his blade with a characteristic smugness unbefitting his age.

“Not a man yet, then,” he sang, ignoring my query. “Not quite. I wonder–”

Reality jerked, and tore, and re-adjusted all at once, ripping me from the place and time I knew and rewinding me to one prior, though not the same as it had before.

“The first strike is yours, my disciple,” Ewan said, settling into his bizarre stance. “Well done.”

“Now, it’s my tu–”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Wait!” I cried out, clutching my head, still adjusting to the sudden warping of time. “Just, just wait a mome–”

“Will the enemy wait for you?” Ewan roared at me, immediately beginning his assault. Desperately, I attempted to block his strike, my steel just barely meeting his own in time. The power behind his blow sent shudders down the bones of my arm, Draconic Blood absent to heal them, this time.

“Will an Aristocrat give you quarter? Will a Titan spare your life?” Ewan howled, striking again, and again, and again, abandoning dexterity for brute strength as he hammered into me until my hand was numbed to the point that my blade fell from it.

Sneering at my pathetic display, Ewan’s arm flickered, and his sword shot up towards my chin.

Though not quite enough to maim, his strike still caused pain to explode across my jaw. My neck jerked taut and I stumbled backwards, falling on my behind as I clutched the bruised bone. Ewan frowned down at me from above.

“Wait, disciple?” he asked, shaking his head, genuinely confused. “You grace me with such a phenomenal display of skill and then ask me to wait? Why, I can–”

Reality warped, and sheared, and twisted, and was remade once more.

“The first strike is yours, my disciple,” Ewan said, settling into his bizarre stance. “Well–”

“FUCK!” I cursed through the still-gnawing pain, leaping immediately to attack my merciless master before he could finish his thought. To his credit, Ewan demonstrated no surprise this time, his impeccable defense easily turning aside my blade, his pommel catching me in the chest with an aching thud.

“ACKGK–!” I choked, stumbling backwards for now the third time, cursing him once more in my mind. Ewan chuckled at me as I did so.

“A fine idea, disciple,” he grinned. “Never give your enemy pause. There are no words in battle. We speak with actions, alone.”

Then he shook his head.

“Except, surprise attacks rarely work the second time. Now, on your fee–”

Reality twisted, and shimmered, and groaned, and was remade once more.

“The first strike is yours–,” Ewan drawled, in what was becoming an increasingly rage-inducing ritual. The aching of his latest strike was lesser than the past two, however, giving me a moment of respite as I ignored his words, narrowed my eyes, and prepared.

“–it’s my turn.”

Ewan finished his monologue, lowered his blade, and I raised mine. Our eyes met. Our breaths synchronized.

We met in a shower of sparks, and steel.

Our clash was a smaller, feebler, thing than those I’d shared of late, with the Kingsguard, with the Titanoboa, even with Flange. No myriad particles shimmered from our blades as we danced, neither of us teleported from place to place with mind-bending speed, nor was even a drop of Entropy used in our combat.

And yet, despite the relative modesty of my opponent, I was struggling. I’d no Blessings to hide behind, now. No overpowered abilities to save myself, this time. This was a war waged with spilt blood, slick sweat, and torn muscles.

I was outmatched.

Ewan’s competence and dexterity put even Glare to shame. I brought with me the fury and desperation of fresh combat, having put my life on the line countless times, but his strikes channeled the brutal calm of cold experience. My erstwhile master, fighting apparently for the first time with all his strength, moved like a living liquid, effortlessly evading my blows, instantaneously countering with a flurry of his own.

I looped once, twice, ten times. Though my wounds were healed, and my flesh and form remade, I was quickly tiring, my endurance all too used to the wellspring of volcanic vigor granted by Draconic Blood.

Phantom pain from past wounds plagued me, weighing heavy on my mind. Unlike Ewan, I couldn’t keep this up forever. And yet, I could feel myself getting closer, inch by inch, parry by parry, approaching the perfection necessary to defeat him. All I needed now was a pause, to catch my breath.

But my master wouldn’t stop, not for anything. He wouldn’t give me pause.

“The first strike is yours, my disciple,” Ewan repeated, following yet another hard-fought defeat, and restart. “Well–”

“I know you used to work for Syn,” I blurted out.

My words were both question and accusation; Ewan had long made known his distaste for the Cells and their ignoble liege-lords. But, right now, they were meant mostly to distract the man’s attention, and thus give me a moment of peace.

They worked better than I ever could have expected.

My master ground to a sudden halt, arms dropping to hang at his sides, stance and enthusiasm both abandoned, posture broken.

A pregnant silence filled the air, punctuated only by my trembling, ravenous breaths. A soothing wave of reprieve permeated me, the pain, at last, beginning to fade.

“Aldwyn told you,” Ewan guessed.

“Everything,” I confirmed.

We were in foreign waters, now, exploring topics which did not exist in my memory. My words were true enough, based on information Aldwyn had indeed given me during our first delve, but Ewan never spoke of this before.

“He told me about how you fought War,” I explained. My master’s empty expression soured with a meager scowl, but it departed just as quickly, replaced by a weary sigh.

“Fought,” he murmured, at last, tapping his sword’s point into the dusty sand. “That’s a good joke, disciple. That’s very good. Your first one, perhaps.”

“There was no fight,” he spat. Then his hardened face crumpled into one thousand little lines and dimples, decades of a poor, subsistence existence made known all at once.

“I learned an important lesson that day,” he said, quietly, a single weathered palm absently rubbing his roughshod sword’s pommel. “One that, by all rights, I should’ve already known. Skill, alone, is not enough. Never enough. Some things are beyond the power of mortal men.”

“Immortals,” he continued, raising a leathery digit into the air. “Titans. Gods, perhaps, if even they exist. Man is no longer master of his world.” He looked at me with something plaintive in his eyes. It was a strange sight to behold.

Ewan was never unsure.

“You need to understand this, bo–Taiven. I tried to…” he stopped, struggling with himself.

“You need to understand this,” he began, again, with gritted teeth. “You shouldn’t even be here. I shouldn’t be teaching you–it’s irresponsible. Filling that poor head of yours with false dreams, fake promises.” He grimaced.

“You aren’t Blessed, boy. There’s much you don’t know, of the world. And you…you…,” Ewan trailed off, again. I wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that I was Blessed, that everything had changed, but I couldn’t. I didn’t dare. To do such a thing might well have caused the loop to end, removing any chance of hearing what my master was about to say..

Ewan’s mouth scrunched up and contorted, twisting itself into knots as he fought with emotions and recollections unknown to me. Finally, he drew breath and spoke.

“I met Aldwyn in Syn,” he said. “That’s true enough. But I was already a man grown, then. Twice your own age. See, I’m not from here, originally. Not like you,” he continued, composure breaking, unable to meet my gaze. “I was born across the sea.”

“When I was a boy, I joined the Devoted.”

I frowned. The organization he mentioned was barely familiar to me. I remembered having heard of it, in passing, during my youth, and having read of it during time in Talos. Yet Ewan acted as if confessing. His disposition spoke of shame. Guilt. Regret.

“The…the cultists?” I asked, tentatively.

“The very same,” he agreed.

“Don’t they worship Titans?”

“They do,” he confirmed.

“But…but you hate the Titans,” I said, confused. “You wouldn’t even–”

Join us on the delve, I wanted to say, but clamped my mouth shut hastily, just catching myself before I informed Ewan of events yet to pass. My master just winced at my words, though, clearly misinterpreting them, and regarded me with a greatly pained look.

“It’s more complicated than that, Taiven, I…” he explained, haltingly. “You don’t know what it’s like, boy, being mundane in Old Europe.” He paced back and forth anxiously, his tense path leaving ragged footfalls in the hot, dry ground.

“It’s not like the villages, not like the wilds, here. Europe’s cities are huge, mammoth and overcrowded. Squalid. Choking on life,” he spat. “I–we–we had nothing. No money, no food, no rights. Nothing, nothing at all. The Devoted were the only ones who took mundies in, represented us in the Assembly, gave us fair work, hope.”

“And they…they…” For a moment, a flicker of something was visible beneath the venom in his voice. Something I recognized in myself.

A dream, long lost but not quite forgotten.

“They promised us powers,” he confessed, wistfully. Then his rage returned.

“I was an urchin,” he swore, face fouling with fury. “A beggar. A thief. My parents starved to death, but I was smaller. I got by. The Maul found me. Fed me. Clothed me. Taught me. Taught me to hate.” his knuckles were blanched, so tightly did he grip the cheap, dull, iron blade.

“And hate I did,” he said. “We raided caravans. Ransacked houses. Slit their throats while they slept.” Ewan’s gaze flickered up to meet mine. There was a seed of sickening darkness, pure blackness, behind his eyes. The whisper of a foreign word.

“Most Blessed are below the Grain stage, you know,” he uttered. “Skin as tough as leather, but not enough to stop steel. Not nearly. We slaughtered ‘em by the droves. Innocents and guilty alike.” Ewan chuckled darkly, almost miserably.

“Innocent. Were they? Were they, truly? These people,” he spat, “walked right past my parents’ corpses, as they rotted in the streets. Is there such a thing as an innocent Blessed?” Ewan stopped, swaying slightly, clutching his head, unsteady on his feet.

“I’m not sure,” he muttered. “I must confess, to this day, I’m not sure. I guess…I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.” The seed of vile blackness faded away, retreating from view, and my master was silent.

I tried to speak, but coughed. My throat had gone dry. I licked my lips, and tried again.

“…and?”

“Hmm?” Ewan replied.

“I mean,” I hesitated. “You…left, clearly. Why?”

Ewan nodded slowly, clenching and unclenching his free hand.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I did.” He looked down at the dirty, dusty ground, dragging his sword’s tip across it lightly. For a brief while, the otherworldly silence of this unnatural place was broken by the screeching, scraping lament of old iron.

“Well,” Ewan said, mildly, raising his eyebrows. “I was part of an escort group, bound from one of the satellite cities to Great Bern. Six days into our journey, our caravan was waylaid by the Sword Titan.”

My breath caught in my throat. Ewan chuckled again, in that sickly, miserable manner.

“Funny, no? The very object of our worship. Official dogma is that Dainsleif punishes those too weak to defend themselves. Well, it certainly did for us. Took us out, slowly. One by one. Hours. Slaughtered us to the last man. We knew all along we were going to die, and we couldn’t do a thing.” His smile was just as much a grimace, a broken, battered thing. “Left me alive, though. The lone survivor. Go figure. That make me strong, or just lucky?”

“The Sword Titan,” I whispered, shaking my head, scarcely believing Ewan’s words. He’d never told anyone this story before, I was sure of that. “And…and you left because of that?”

Ewan laughed again, and the sound of it made me wince.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you, boy?” he drawled. “But nay. After all, I was Devoted. Still fully committed to delivering that caravan. That is, until I had a look inside. Until I had a look at our cargo.” Ewan leaned in close to me, his breath hotter than the imaginary sun above our heads.

“Explosives. Runic devices packed to the brim with enough pure, unattuned Entropy to send half of Bern directly to whatever Gods they chose to believe in, Blessed and mundies alike.” He spread his arms wide.

“I was more a fool than you, boy, at that age, but even I could see the writing on the wall. The Devoted didn’t care. Our struggle. Our plight. A bad joke. They just…just wanted to use us.” He shrugged.

“I called for reinforcements, primed the explosives, and ran as fast and far as I could. Hope I killed as many of the Spawnfuckers as possible. End of the day,” he nodded to himself with absolute, ironclad confidence, “the only good Blessed is a dead one. Ended up in the Cells, met Aldwyn. He told you the rest, apparently.”

Ewan nodded again, and closed his eyes, taking a deep, shaky breath, and letting it out slow. By the time he opened them, something new shined from within.

“Enough of this,” he declared. “Fuck the exam. Teaching you was selfish. Negligent. My hopes, my dreams, embodied vicariously by a boy naive enough to have no reason to doubt them. There’s no point in this, never was.”

Ewan raised himself up, posture firmer than before, all trace of weariness banished from his eyes. He threw his sword to the ground.

“You’re a smart kid, Taiven. Smarter than me. You really are. You don’t want this,” he shook his head one final time. “Don’t make my mistakes.”

Nervously, I glanced to the edges of reality, ready and waiting for them to blacken and tear, but…nothing happened. I stood stock-still, and Ewan stood before me, arms crossed, surly frown slowly transforming into something happier, something almost…at peace.

My brow furrowed. How was I meant to complete the Trial, now?

Suddenly, as if prompted by my words, a great wave of power slammed into my chest. I gasped, and staggered back.

Euphoria.

It was pure euphoria, flushed into my blood. Distilled potency, concentrated potential injected into part of my body where brain met spine. The feeling was orgasmic, strength and beauty and power and magic all rolled into one.

The song had returned to me, and with it, Entropy.

My soul exploded into being once more, my Blessings blooming back into awareness one by one, greeting me as old friends, dear comrades, and ever-faithful knights. Fang howled with delight, racing around my now remade sea at the speed of thought, Draconic Blood erupted with volcanic fury, Flash Step thundered from above, Personal Storage hummed from below, and throughout all, Bullet Time kept constant watch.

New, fresh power came with them, running rapturous through my veins, shocking my senses and filling my body to the brim, then more, then more, until I was a cup overflowing, a basin frothing at the brim.

The pressure built, and built, and built, until it was almost painful…

And then–stopped.

Like a sneeze that would not come, a dam not quite flimsy enough to burst, the tidal wave of Entropy had nowhere to go, and so simply sat inside me, whirling, waiting. While not quite painful, it was thoroughly uncomfortable, many thousand little pins and needles tingling, prodding at the barrier between soul and flesh.

I frowned, immediately worried.

Is something wrong? Did I pass the Trial, or didn’t I?

Confounded, about to summon my Grimoire, I was stopped by the actions of my master. Ewan, entirely ignorant to my distress, strode towards me, a broad smile on his, for once, no longer quite so beaten face.

“Now,” he began, “what say we–”

Then he froze.

A shrill, screeching, agonized wail clawed its way forth from the depths of my master’s throat as his spine snapped concave, doubling him over. His limbs were twitching, joints clicking nauseatingly, body convulsing erratically, hands clawing desperately at his chest and neck.

I watched in abject horror as Ewan’s face, paralyzed with pain, started to deform. His eyes wept tears of aqueous humor as they dissolved wholesale. The skin fell in great, bloody chunks from his lips and cheeks, twin fleshy mandibles emerging each side of his mouth to leave him with a rictus, sanguine, insectoid grin.

In two massive, cracking contortions, Ewan jerked taut, standing straight back up. But his movement was no longer so fluid. Instead, his muscles bunched artificially, robotically as if directed by a creature unused to human locomotion. From within his now empty orbits, pools of deep, rich blood swirling in miniature maelstroms locked onto me.

Still smiling, Ewan’s head quirked jarringly to one side, and he spoke.

“How quaint.”

The voice I heard was not my master’s.

It was a moaning chorus of one thousand souls speaking discordantly, a hundred different tunes and tenors, highs and lows, all converging unusually into one theme. A cacophony forced to coexist, a barely comprehensible cavalcade of chittering chitin, of arcane sandpaper chafing against my ears.

My eyes widened and I shrank backwards, hiding behind my trembling, outstretched blade. I recognized it.

“What a nice story,” ADMINISTRATION crooned. “But we’re not finished yet.”

So it said, and spread its arms wide, allowing the impossibly vast aura of an eldritch predator to wash freely over me, its sovereignty heralded in ancient choirs and antediluvian hymns, great bases bellowed by the Shardsong.

I shook and shivered, stumbling back, calling forth my Blessings to defend me, Draconic Blood’s best efforts helpless to safeguard against the eidolic whispers that assaulted my very soul. My stalwart Shards shuddered at its greatness, my inner sea whipped into even greater frenzy, the creature’s mere presence causing dreadful pulses of soul-pain to rend my mind.

It was only my recent torture that allowed me to remain sane.

“You have your pithy powers back, I see,” the parasite infecting my master sneered at me. “That’s good. You’ll need them.”

Its grotesque, perverse, inhuman smile deepened.

“Little Host. Time to prove yourself worthy of my might.”