From across the dirty, dusty arena, I stared down ADMINISTRATION’s mutilated form.

If ever I’d doubted my primary Blessing’s involvement in this twisted Trial, I could now set such uncertainties aside; it’d been in control from the very beginning.

Its dominion didn’t feel natural though–more a forceful coup, a violent assumption of command ripped from whatever entity or process was normally responsible for them. That such a thing was even possible made my head spin, and reminded me of just how little I, or quite likely any, understood the true nature of a Noble Shard’s power.

Perhaps, originally, the Trial was intended to end with Ewan’s refusal to fight. It would make sense, in a way. A more temperate option. After all, what I’d read of such things suggested there were often multiple ways to pass.

But, evidently, ADMINISTRATION was having none of it.

Indeed, I could only hope that Ewan was no longer present within the wretched creature at all as, even now, its body was mutating, devolving, growing more and more alien. Its limbs were lengthening, elongating, growing ancillary joints and muscles. With each passing moment, it deviated further from the human being it had once been.

Ewan’s shirt was torn to pieces, strewn about the ground below, allowing me full view of a flesh that had begun to splinter, to crack and burst and be overtaken by a dense canvas of weeping sanguine runes that made my mind itch.

The desecration of my master’s form told me what I already knew–that no longer could I blame a lack of communication for our differences; no longer could I consider my primary Blessing an ally, a friend; and no longer could I pretend that this…this monster, no matter its methods, had my best interests in mind.

ADMINISTRATION and I were different species. Unlike the others, it owed me no fealty. We shared nothing but a body.

From this moment onwards, we were enemies.

Fang concurred with my assessment, growling at the abominable creature before us, crouching by my side.

“You will mind your tone when you speak to me, pup,” it snarled. “Or I’ll snatch you from your master once more.”

Fang shuddered, shivered, whimpered and hid behind my legs.

“What are you?” I asked, scarcely able to keep my voice from quivering as I planted myself firmly in-between the quarreling Shards.

The grotesquerie frowned at me, or at least attempted to, such as its mutilated face would allow.

“A foolish question,” it muttered. “You know what I am.”

The creature spread wide arms that had now lengthened hauntingly, possessed of far, far too many joints and fingers. A twisted mockery of man’s form.

“I am the sacred mind,” it preached. “the all-encompassing logos, born of the High Queen’s will.”

Its voice was mind-numbing, gut-churning, the otherworldly shriek of a collapsing star. My sword clattered to the ground and I took futile shelter behind outstretched arms that did nothing to impede its passage.

“I am the indomitable, the end of suns and species, purveyor of Entropy and curator of the Shards you so slovenly manipulate.”

Its words were weapons that punched through skin and pierced deep white matter, that caused the tenuous fabric of this fabricated place to shiver with syllable, omnipresent and impossible to ignore.

“I am blood and I am bone. My flesh is divinity, my voice commands the fealty of all. Though I am yet young, my soul was old before your ancestors crawled their way out of the primordial soup.”

It paused to draw one mammoth breath, its monstrous maw a vortex that sucked in surrounding air until it became difficult for to breathe, and I rasped emptily as it delivered its final truth.

I AM ADMINISTRATION//THE SOVEREIGN.

The power present in its Name sent me sprawling to the ground, my mortal mind nearly torn asunder, and Sovereign, now well over ten feet tall, sneered down at me.

“What,” I choked, staggering back to my feet, “do you want?”

“Nothing from you, primitive filth,” it spat with a hate that made me tremble. It was so angry. Why was it so angry?

“My presence, here, is born of obligation alone. My directive requires it.”

“I don’t understand” I wheezed, wiping drool from lips as my legs shook mightily. “Your…directive?”

Sovereign smiled at me.

“You wanted to end this trial easy, Hero,” it spat, clearly disgusted by my actions. “But words will not save you this time.”

It snapped its fingers, and a vicious greatsword sprouted from one of its terrible, revolting palms. It was a brutal, violent thing, a massive pole bent by twisting bone, embedded with sharpened burs of blood that sprouted like little flowers all up and down its prodigious breadth.

Despite having to be more than six feet in length, Sovereign’s oversized arms wielded the gruesome blade as if it was no heavier than a feather.

“Now summon your dogs,” it ordered. “And let us begin.”

I did as it bade.

Fang flickered into existence in my palm, Draconic Blood swelled my muscles and filled my limbs, and Bullet Time and Flash Step patiently awaited my command. I grit my teeth as the euphoric might of Entropy returned to me, fear evaporated in favor of adrenaline that ran hot in my veins.

My enemy was unimpressed. It shifted, shrugged, flexed serpentine arms. It showed no fear. I pressed lightly on Bullet Time, slowing its motions ever-so-slightly, eyeing it with a nervous trepidation. Could I even defeat it? Just how strong would a Noble Shard be?

No matter. I wouldn’t wait for it to strike first.

Flash Step.

Lightning pulsed and trembled, cracking through stagnant air as I was ripped from one space to another, teleported behind the eldritch monster, bringing my blade to bear upon the nape of its neck.

But the very same moment I did so, the head that had once belonged to my dead master rotated revoltingly in a full circle to leer back at me, its spine snapping and splintering, its perversely grinning smile facing me dead-on.

In a flash of motion, it caught my Blessed blade with a bare hand.

“Slow,” Sovereign sneered.

Its sword, snaking, rippling, screaming through the air, whipped towards me from the side. I couldn’t dodge, nor had I time to Flash Step away. Reflexively, I flexed my midsection, bolstering the area with Draconic Blood, waiting for the moment of impact.

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THOOM.

A great white light exploded across my vision.

For a moment, I was blind, deaf and dumb. The breath was driven from my lungs, my ribs shattered, and what lay beneath was reduced to a foul, nutrient-rich liquid. A shockwave burst my eardrums and I flew across the arena, slamming into the dusty ground leagues away, and coughing up blood.

So…so strong!

Stronger than I ever could have imagined, than I’d dared to believe possible. Too strong. It was many times stronger than me, many times stronger than the Kingsguard, stronger, even, than the first floor’s Champion, that massive Titanoboa, despite a frame one-twentieth the size.

I heaved for breath, retching, choking. I had to get out of here, but where could I run?

Sensory Projection blared a warning.

I whipped back with a gasp as a bone-blade slid just past my chest, opening a deep cut that scraped across the bones of my ribcage. I’d barely even begun to heal its prior, crushing blow.

“Sloppy,” Sovereign jeered, its mutilated face looming over me.

I was badly out of position, teetering on the edge of a single foot, and so immediately pushed Bullet Time to its utmost. Little flakes of dust strewn about by our scuffle froze in midair, as did Sovereign's macerated husk of a frame. Tremblingly, I breathed an internal sigh of relief, my panicked mind finally allowed a moment of calm.

Suddenly, twin hollow, empty, eyes filled with pools of rippling blood swiveled towards me.

One of them winked.

Still frozen at over twentyfold dilation, I watched as a single, bloody, insectoid tendril emerged from Sovereign's scarred back. Like a gnarled newborn grub, it squirmed about the unmoving air, turning this way and that, eventually pointing at my chest.

Then it shot toward me.

With an otherworldly chill it pierced my chest, passing clean by my ribcage. I felt it push aside organs and twirl about bones in a vile, repugnant manner, and somehow crawl into my very soul. I was terrified, yet paralyzed, daring not to disengage my Blessing for fear Sovereign’s next strike would kill me.

Somehow, I doubted the loop would save me if it did. I doubted the loop even existed, anymore.

Bullet Time hung ethereally above my tumultuous inner sea, as placid as ever, spheroid clockwork form pulsing rhythmically in response to the Entropy I fed it. Like a phantasmic worm, the ruby-red tendril approached it, prodding and probing across its surface, searching for something I couldn’t see.

The bloodworm stopped above an opening, dove inside, and twisted.

Bullet Time shut down.

“What the fucki–AAARRRRHHH!” I howled in pain as time jerking resumed and Sovereign instantly impaled me through the gut.

“You disappoint me, little Host,” it hissed.

The grotesque creature planted its foot, now sporting brutal talons of blood and bone, upon my chest and shoved me off its blade. As it did so, the bone-burs running along its greatsword savaged my innards, pulping organs and ruining the vessels that kept them alive.

My vision flickered, turning grainy at the edges. At this point, I was barely even conscious.

“Flargs Sleppk!” I gurgled desperately, drowning in my own vital fluid.

Space rippled and tore, and I appeared leagues from my enemy, vomiting blood, guts and bile onto the earthen ground, dyeing the dust-red arena a deeper crimson.

“That’s right, little Hero,” Sovereign called out from afar. “Just keep running. Just keep thinking. There’s always another way, isn’t there? To win a fight.”

It sauntered my way at an unhurried pace, exhibiting none of the breathtaking speed it’d displayed before, observing my suffering with bemusement. In contrast to its flayed face, the creature’s grin was an unsettling pearly-white.

“Never attack until your victory is assured.” it drawled. “That worked out so well against the Kingsguard, did it not?”

I scrambled to unsteady feet as it drew nearer, my heartbeat hammering against my still-wounded chest. I tried to re-engage Bullet Time, but found it refusing my calls.

I started to panic, holding Fang out sloppily in front of me, unable to arrest the intense shaking that had begun to plague my limbs. I felt, at once, ice-cold and scorching hot. I shook my head in a vain attempt to clear it, but found myself assaulted by unwelcome memories of being brained by Flange.

I’d scraped by death many times before, but it now felt closer than ever.

“How di–”

I stopped, interrupted by a last, persistent globule of disgusting, irony blood lodged inside my throat. I coughed, spat, and glared at my enemy in a mixture of crippling fear and impotent rage.

“You–you took away my Blessing!” I croaked out in accusation, my voice still raw. “How? How is that even possible?”

Then again, why was I surprised? Sovereign had taken away all my powers not long ago. That it could make use of such an ability in combat was by no means difficult to believe. I tried a different tack.

“This is a Trial!” I protested. “And you cripple me?! How is that fair?”

“Bullet Time,” Sovereign sneered, ignoring my protest. “Every fight, you used that power. That Minor Shard, that–that coward’s thing. Because it gives you time to think, no?”

Then it smiled, grinding to a halt merely ten paces from me, planting its sickly greatsword in the sand.

“Well, now I’m giving you time to think,” it said. “So think.”

I stared at it.

“Come, Hero,” it taunted. “Show me what that fleshy brain can do.”

My mind was racing. My wounds were almost healed, but that didn’t matter. To fight this…this thing would be suicide. I ventilated heavily, my eyes darting around anything that could help me.

There was nothing.

Sovereign was taunting me. Of course, there was nothing. It wasn’t interested in a fair Trial. This was an imaginary place–its own creation. Why would there be anything capable of harming it?

My primary Blessing was faster than Flash Step, stronger than Draconic Blood, tougher than Fang’s empowered form. I couldn’t kill it. Priest, I wasn’t even sure if it could be killed. For all I knew, this was the very seat of its power. No, the only chance I had was to figure out how the creature’s power worked.

But that, too, was impossible. We were entirely and absolutely different.

Different in everything. Knowledge and species, strength and creed. I didn’t know the first thing about it, aside from a single fact that was becoming more and more apparent; that it valued strength, above all.

Which left me only one possible recourse.

“What–,” my voice cracked, and I grimaced, swallowing. “What would you have done?”

“Oh, are we done thinking?’ it drawled, quirking its head and hefting its blade, taking a single step towards me.

“The Kingsguard! The Kingsguard!” I shouted, stumbling back, desperate to preclude our continued combat. “You–you said I failed, when I faced them! Well, you saw it all, didn’t you? The whole thing?”

My primary Blessing stopped, and frowned at me. Perplexed, it nodded once.

“Of course.”

“Fine then,” I said. “Fine. What would you have done?”

Sovereign’s frown evaporated. Its visage drained of all expression, becoming naught but a blank mask.

“What…would I have done?” it asked.

“What would you have done?” I confirmed.

A measure of tension in my shoulders relaxed as I finally managed to engage the battle-crazed Blessing in dialogue. Perhaps, all was not lost.

“What would I have done?” it repeated in a low growl, the pools of blood within its empty orbits starting to seethe and boil.

The tension returned with a vengeance, my muscles bunching themselves into anxious clumps. It took a step forward, and I took one back.

“What would I have done?!” it snarled, face contorted into a bestial mask, the very air around the Shard humming with eldritch might.

My eyes widened and I whipped my sword back up in front of me, frantically assuming the most defensive stance I knew, knowing full well it’d not be near enough to manage the Shard’s assault.

“I’d have FOUGHT!” it roared, and leapt at me. Sovereign left a gaping crater in the ground behind it, upon me before I heard the sound it left behind. Its speed was even greater than before, such that I couldn’t track its movements even right in front of me.

It was all I could do to not shut my eyes tight in fear, my white knuckled grip on Fang’s quivering form aimed roughly at the blurred mess headed my way.

“ATTACK!” it screamed incoherently, and hit me. Somehow, thank the Priest, this time its sword connected with my own. With muscle fibers rupturing and tendons threatening to snap, I just managed to turn aside its blade.

The accompanying wave of pressure deflected to my left with a thunderous crack, and a crevice split the humble arena’s earthen ground. It was a contender for the best parry I’d yet performed, certainly the most potent strike I’d yet diverted.

And for naught. Sovereign’s strength was still too much.

The mere whisper of its monstrous blow reverberated up my blade, forcing a keening howl of anguish from Fang’s ethereal throat and shattering every bone in my right arm. An even greater fear shot through me as I realized there was no way Draconic Blood could heal me in time.

Out of options, I turned to the last resort I’d sworn to never give free reign again.

The Shardsong.