Glade fell onto his back. First, he breathed heavily just to catch his breath, but it turned into a laugh. He’d done it.

Wren was gone. Dead.

He’d defeated a God-heir—or close enough to one.

The swordwyrm flopped across him, landing hard on his stomach with the flat of the blade. It knocked the air out of his lungs again, but he put a hand down on it gently. “You are free to leave. Your half of the deal was fulfilled.”

The swordwyrm didn’t budge.

“Alright then,” he whispered. He had a pet flying sword now. “You want me to help you eat more swords, is that it?”

The swordwyrm shifted side-to-side, wagging its hilt.

After a few minutes of laying still, unmoving, Glade sat up. A flash of light seeped out from the very top of the central control dome, miles above. He might have chalked it up to a glint of sunlight, but it happened again a second later, then three more times.

It was Vayra’s starlight, and brighter than he’d ever seen it before.

She was fighting someone, and another surge of powerlessness bled into him. If she died, and he had been so far away…

Then the white light held. The universe breathed a sigh of relief, and a deep sense of harmonic, balanced willpower radiated from the upper dome. He’d only felt a power like this once before, and it had been much weaker.

She was using the Mediator form.

image [https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_2bcdeab6626a49c1bc2fa21d230a67c6~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_560,h_281,al_c,lg_1,q_85,enc_auto/ship%20better.png]

Vayra and Phasoné became one. Phasoné’s white outline traced over Vayra, forming a long skirt that looked more like a waist-cape, then wrapping up into a detailed ghostly casing. It meshed with the Astral Shroud, two parts of one whole, and their wills combined. The scythe appeared, its Moulding more intricate than ever before.

Vayra and Phasoné reached across their body and ripped the three-part staff out of their mechanical hand. They cast it aside and let it tumble across the floor. They pushed their hands back against the wall, filling the glass with free-flowing high grade mana. A pressure on the other side of the wall built—Nathariel was doing his part—and the mandala-lock began to fill up with orange and white Arcara. Vayra and Phasoné barely paid any attention to it.

White light bathed everything. Larra’s face lit up in shock, then annoyance. She rushed forward, and Gnasher approached from the side.

Vayra and Phasoné flashed to the side, trailing sparks through the air, then swung at Larra. The God-heir grabbed the haft of the scythe, and as an Admiral, she was still strong enough to throw them to the side.

But Vayra and Phasoné didn’t stumble yet. They clung tight to the haft of the scythe and planted its blunt end down.

Larra restored her own Bracing technique, and tendrils of water wrapped around her. She punched Vayra and Phasoné in the chest, and it was still enough to send the pair sliding back a few feet

But Vayra and Phasoné were ready for the next punch. They caught Larra’s fist in their mechanical hand and squeezed. The ring finger and pointer finger didn’t respond to commands—their artificial tendons had been ripped—but three fingers were enough to crack Larra’s bones.

With their flesh and blood hand, Vayra and Phasoné smashed Larra in the gut with the scythe’s blade.

Larra’s shields absorbed the sharpness of the blow, but Vayra and Phasoné asserted enough to send the God-heir flying across the room.

Gnasher pounced, enveloped in a Bracing technique and protected by wards. Phasoné’s will suggested that they end the fight, and Vayra’s will agreed. They swatted the wolf’s muzzle down with the haft of their scythe, then punched its chest with their mechanical fist. As soon as the knuckles came into contact with the wolf’s watery shield, they activated the disruption rune.

A pulse of invisible spiritual energy cleansed all the techniques within a foot-radius arc, leaving an exposed hole. Before the shields and Bracing returned, they stabbed the blade of the scythe into the hole, relying on the speed of the Astral Shroud.

Gnasher yelped and whined. Vayra and Phasoné moved quickly. As the beast collapsed, its insides seared by a white-hot blade of light, they ripped it out to the side. Gnasher fell silent and still.

They pushed the wolf’s body over to Larra with a kick. Phasoné meant it as a threat, and Vayra meant it as an offering of condolences. It had been a humane death, but it was still the death of a companion.

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Gnasher’s body began to disintegrate into blue ash. Whatever he had truly been, he had no blood. All that remained was his black, cracked tooth, which Larra picked up.

Her face twisted in rage, but her spirit declined. She fell back to a Captain, and it had to be an involuntary drop.

Vayra and Phasoné’s spirit trembled. Vayra’s will began to divert from Phasoné’s. The Mediator Form destabilized, and a tiredness rolled through Vayra’s spirit. She had channeled high-power Arcara, higher than ever before, and she couldn’t hold it much longer.

She fell to her knees, the last dregs of white light flowing off her. She and Phasoné separated once more. Their beings unwove from each other, becoming separate wills once again.

Larra scoffed, then kicked the dust of Gnasher. “You’ll pay! Without your form, what are you?”

Vayra looked up, trying to catch her breath. “Without your artifact and beast, what are you?”

“So it’s an even fight!” Larra jumped forward, and Vayra struck her in the forehead with the haft of her scythe, sending her sliding back along the ground.

Larra stood up and took a fighting stance. She was still going?

The glass wall behind Vayra crumbled. The Moulded Emissary-stage Arcara dissolved like a sugar cube in the rain, and glass shards peeled off before crashing down on the wooden floor and shattering.

Nathariel and Pels stood behind her. Nathariel’s spear glowed, its tip flaming orange, and Pels pointed a pistol at Larra.

Larra’s eyes widened even further, but she wrenched her face under control a moment later and took a step back. “You—”

Nathariel whipped a bolt of flame at her. She barely dispelled it with a sloshing pulse of water, then spun around and sprinted out of the control room. Slamming her hand into the wall, she reactivated the doors and locks as she ran.

Vayra pushed herself to her feet, preparing to chase after Larra, but Nathariel gently grabbed her shoulder. “You need to rest. You are in no state to fight her fresh after advancement, and so soon after using the Mediator form.”

“I’ve done it before,” she said, trying to heave herself forwards. “Letting her escape is a mistake.”

“Running into a trap is a mistake,” Nathariel asserted. “Don’t make a fool of yourself. You won. She lost her advantages, and she is nothing more than a normal heir, now.”

“I’ve used the Mediator Form and been fine. I—”

“And you never channelled so much high-power Arcara. Rest, before you cripple yourself.”

‘He’s right, Vayra,’ Phasoné said. ‘We cannot get ourselves killed or trapped because of this. Don’t turn your victory into a defeat.’

Vayra nodded. She let her shoulders relax and fall, then, turning around, she sighed. After a few more seconds, she said, “Thank you. Thank you all.”

“You’re a Captain, now,” Nathariel said. “And most of that was on you.”

“If you hadn’t told me how to get through the Lieutenant stages and guided me to this point…” she whispered.

“It was a team effort, eh?” Pels said. “You all can be happy and proud, but we still have a greenhouse to escape. Assuming you’ve got everything you came for.”

Vayra shut her eyes. She still had ten vials of high-grade elixir in her corespace, a new pistol, and she’d advanced as far as she needed. “I’m…good. If we stay here any longer, we’ll give Larra time to recoup and hunt us, or someone more powerful will catch on and we’ll be done for.” She walked across the little room and picked up the pistol she had retrieved earlier—it was too valuable to leave behind.

“And if we don’t get moving, we might not make it in time to register for the tournament,” Nathariel said.

Over the next few hours, the three of them navigated across to the other side of the control dome and down to the roots. Vayra let her channels relax. A little bit of char had built up from continual use of the Astral Shroud, and they were just exhausted. She flooded them, cleansing and purifying out the debris until they were clear, then called all her mana and Arcara back to her core to let the channels rest.

When they reached the bottom of the dome, Vayra looked down. The entire central wall was dissolving. The structural Moulded Arcara collapsed, and the panes of glass began to fall.

“We might have overdone it,” Nathariel said.

“The…mandala lock did all that?” Vayra whispered back.

“You flooded it with a lot of Arcara, and these systems are old and finicky. It is likely a product of decay more than anything.”

The three of them began a descent along the enormous roots on the wall. To aid their descent, Nathariel held a rope for them. He used his enhanced body to support the rope, belaying Pels and Vayra as they rappelled down the upright root-cords. When they reached the end of the rope, they dug in and paused, and Nathariel jumped down to their level. He dug his heels into the rough bark and wedged his hand into cracks to catch himself.

Halfway down the root-cord, while the sun was still setting, the roots finally broke free from the decaying central wall. With a creak and a groan, the root began to collapse under its own weight. With nothing to cling to, it keeled over, peeling off the wall.

When the section of root that Vayra and the others were climbing down began to leaned away from the wall, their fingers started to slip. The air rushed around them, and before Vayra registered it, the root shook them off. They were freefalling.

“Spread your limbs out!” Nathariel shouted. “Vayra, I will need a hand!”

She knew what to do. Nathariel poured a sphere of fire-Arcara into the air below them, and Vayra added to it with a shield of her own. She’d been resting all day, and she could pour a little Arcara out, now.

Pels fell between them, but after a few seconds, he drifted over to Nathariel. The Admiral hoisted Pels up onto his back, so when they hit the ground, Nathariel would take the blow first.

The shield of flame and starlight bashed the ground first, digging up a wave of dirt as it cushioned their landing. The starlight ward absorbed the rest of the impact.

When the dust cleared, they laid in a crater wide enough to fit an entire ship.

Pels was the first to stand up and brush himself off. “Wonderful way down, I’ll say. Exceptional speed. Now, why you brought me along in the first place: allow me to help us find the Harmony again.”