Glade awoke to a crash. He sprang up from his hammock, just in time for his door to be kicked open.
Three God-heirs in black coats marched into the tiny room, holding staffs and cycling Second Lieutenant-grade Arcara. An ambush. If they hadn’t made such a loud noise, it might just have worked, but in a fair fight, they wouldn’t last long against a peak Captain. Against him.
Glade tensed, directing mana into his gut and chest, fuelling his Dawnspear body. The assassins unleashed a burst of wind and powerful strikes that drove him to the ground. He ripped through the hammock and fell hard on his back, cracking the floor beneath him. The rushing air tried to rip the skin off his bare chest and shatter his bones.
But, even hammered by fists of wind, he had the strength to move. He thrust a kick out at the nearest assassin, shattering the man’s knee in a single blow. The swordwyrm leapt out of the room’s corner and engaged, slashing at one of the assassins, and Glade directed the metal filings in his pouch to leap out and form a spike. It impaled the third assassin through the heart.
He whirled around, facing the last two, and grasped his sword from its resting place beside the door. With a single swipe, he tugged it out of its sheath. The assassin with the shattered knee charged, but Glade conjured a wedge of sharp Arcara along the length of his blade and slashed right through the staff.
With a second swipe, he slashed upward and across the assassin’s gut, then cut her head off to end her quickly.
The swordwyrm pinned the last assassin’s foot, locking the man in place. It shifted its hulking blade to the side to block a pulse of wind. Glade approached, trying to gauge if the man wanted to run or not.
But the God-heir kept launching puffs of wind at Glade. One struck him in the shoulder, making him reel.
Loyal to whoever sent them up to the very end. Glade was tempted to stop, to try and interrogate the man, but there was no point. He knew exactly who had sent these assassins. They were wind-Path God-heirs, after all, and they would be subservient to the High Pantheon.
When the assassin showed an opening, Glade lunged forward and jabbed his sword through the man’s neck, ending him quickly.
The swordwyrm fluttered away and swirled up behind Glade’s back, hoving just behind him. “Fiends,” it hissed. “Ambushy fiends!”
“Thanks for the help,” Glade whispered. He rubbed his shoulder, but really, his whole body was aching. His spirit screamed with strain, and his channels ached, ready to burst apart and fizzle. It was an itch he couldn’t scratch, but ten times as painful.
But the assassins wouldn’t have been here just for him. He couldn’t just stand around. He gritted his teeth, then cut off as many of his techniques as he could to preserve mana. He just needed enough to keep his body moving.
He ran out into their apartment’s common room. A hole had been torn in the opposite wall, where Vayra’s room was, but she was nowhere to be seen. There was another hole that led into the outer hallway, where Nathariel stood, brushing dust off his shoulders.
“You could have helped,” Glade grumbled.
“You had everything under control,” Nathariel said, marching across the ruined apartment, to the last hole—which led out to the risers of the arena. “I was more concerned about Vayra, aye?”
Glade ran to the edge of the hole with Nathariel, and they both looked out upon the terraced stone slope. The God-heirs had smashed through the sloped risers, leaving a scar in the seats. In the distance stood Vayra, glowing white and holding her scythe. She faced the last assassin—a Commodore-stage foe. She was still in her sleepwear, and clear phoenix blood dribbled from scrapes across her body.
“We need to help!” Glade exclaimed.
“I don’t think we need to,” Nathariel said.
“But you said you were—”
“I said I was more concerned. Not that I am now.” Nathariel pointed out at her. “She’s on the brink of something. We can’t interfere, now, or she might not make the advancement.”
Glade shut his eyes. It ached, not being able to do anything. She was the Mediator, and he’d sworn to help on the behalf of the Order, but she was also his friend. He’d always thought he was fated to help the Mediator.
But that didn’t really line up with his last revelation, and it couldn’t really be true. He hadn’t looked into Fate, and he doubted he even had the spiritual potential to make the kausisia work—if he’d been able to get his hands on it.
Besides, even if he could look into Fate, he probably wouldn’t register as any more than a slight blip. He wasn’t a God or a Mediator.
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That was enough to make his soul quiver and tremble, but not enough to push him over the edge.
“You have an advancement to make, too, aye?” Nathariel said. “You have enough Arcara, and you’ve reached the advancement threshold.”
Glade nodded.
“I know you’re close. One last push. You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
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Vayra ducked to the side and struck Narrilé with a Starlight Palm, buying herself time. “Phas, I know my revelation. Is it going to debilitate me for a little while?”
‘It’ll be like your advancement to Captain. He won’t be able to hit you.’
“Great.”
Vayra crouched down on the stands and pressed her fist against the stone seats below her, acutely aware of the mortal eyes watching, as well as a few God-heir contestants from the apartment complex. She needed to end it quickly, or the arena guards would come and break up the fight, and Narrilé would get away. He wouldn’t stop; he’d just come back and get them at an even less convenient time.
First, she clutched Adair and drew him into the corespace to protect him, then she shut her eyes and whispered her revelation.
“I don’t understand the galaxy.”
Not only was it true, but…she had to stop pretending.
A wave of force radiated away from her, and her core trembled, like it was about to implode. Arcara swirled and poured into it, then an invisible, empty wind shot away from her in all directions, pushing Narrilé away.
“Let’s make this quick,” Vayra hissed through clenched teeth. White sparks whirled in a vortex around her. “Is it reforging my body the whole way again?”
‘Not your body,’ Phasoné said. ‘This time, your Arcara channels and core are reforging themselves into something greater. More stable, more solid, more real. The gap between your real body and your spiritual systems is closing.’
A pang of spiritual shock and resonance blasted through her, and her entire Arcara system liquified, then poured out into her muscles and bones. Invisible tendrils wrapped her limbs, binding her system further to her real form.
But since it wasn’t reforging her entire body, it didn’t take as long. Within ten, maybe fifteen seconds, the whirling white sparks died out. A pulse of white lightning blasted through her, and her channels returned to reality, burning twice as strong and bright in her perception as they had before. Her core felt no different, except that its outer crust seemed just a little more…hard. Solid.
Immediately, when the whirlwind ended, Narrilé dashed into action, swinging his staff like an enormous sword. Vayra bent backward, dipping under it just in time. She barely saw it coming, but it left ripples in her awareness, as if her mind had an invisible model of everything around her. The warning of danger in her spirit was twice as strong.
So that was what her Commodore-stage spiritual senses were like.
There was no time to test the range. She was on even footing as Narrilé. Aside from the enhanced senses, her Arcara had improved a grade, making it purer, faster, and stronger. She held her arms up, clenched her fists, and took a fighting stance.
Narillé noticed it as well. A whisper of fear set into his eyes, but he still whirled his staff and charged in.
The advancement had taken most of Vayra’s mana, but the Mediator Form could resolve that.
She shut her eyes, aligned her will with Phasoné, and let the Goddess envelop her, sharing the same wheel. And she pushed it as hard as she could, using the Goddess’ energies from high above, borrowing Emissary-grade Arcara, and letting it cycle as fast as she could, purifying new Arcara in a matter of seconds.
All while Narrilé approached, unleashing a flurry of wind-enhanced blows with his staff.
Vayra and Phasoné ducked away from one, and when they had enough Arcara, they activated the Astral Shroud.
And then it was over for the God-heir. They whirled around his back and struck him with a flurry of Starlight Palms. He reeled and activated his teleportation device, whatever sort of treasure it was, and flashed to the opposite side of her. She spun to face him, trusting her enhanced spiritual senses and pinpointing exactly where he’d be.
They grabbed his staff with their mechanical hand, and with the strength and enhanced grade of their Commodore Arcara, they willed their hand to crush it into splinters.
In a matter of seconds, they had Narrilé on his back, panting and gasping. Kicking, tripping, gut-strikes and Starlight Palms, all too fast for even him to counter. Vayra deactivated the Mediator Form and the Astral Shroud and leaned over him. She conjured the scythe and held it at his throat.
“Phasoné helped with that, I’ll have you know,” Vayra said.
“I hate you, sister,” he gasped. His left hand dipped into his coat, under the guise of covering a wound.
‘Vayra, he’s reaching for a dagger…’ Phasoné warned.
“I sense it,” she whispered back.
As soon as he drew the dagger, she whirled the scythe and slashed through his wrist, severing the hand that held it. He screamed and writhed, but hated and determination still burned in his eyes.
‘He’s not going to give up.’
Vayra shut her eyes and clenched every muscle for a second, then slashed his head off with her scythe as quickly as she could. She fell back on the risers, panting, then turned away from the God-heir’s body.
‘We had to do it,’ Phasoné said.
“How many are they going to throw at us?” Vayra whispered. “Karmion? The other gods? How many children are they going to sacrifice?”
‘This was the work of my mother,’ said Phasoné. She paused for a few more seconds, then added, ‘Maybe it’s time I had a conversation with her.’