Nestled deep within the cracks that spanned throughout the edges of the universe, a banquet hall of silver glistened amidst a sea of empty white. The hall was enormous, with a ceiling that rose so far above that a sea of distant stars rested below its ceiling.

A long, grandiose table ran down the room’s length, lined with hundreds of gilded chairs on each side. Every single one of them was empty.

The table came to a stop hundreds of feet away from a raised platform, where two plain chairs had been set up before a large disk of dark water that floated like a mirror, an image of another plane rippling upon its surface.

Between the pair of chairs was a pedestal made from pitch black night. Silver trimming ran up its rippling surface. The pedestal was plain, yet the magic within it was so immense that any mortal lucky enough to lay eyes upon it likely would have found their understanding of runic patterns magnified by a hundredfold — if their mind managed to survive the experience.

And upon the pedestal, a priceless artifact made of magic that would have been worth more wealth than what entire nations could ever dream to possess, was a bowl of chocolate.

There were only two beings within the room. They sat on either side of the bowl, slumped back in the chairs with their feet kicked up on small stools with more than a few chocolate stains on their faces — and they were both frozen mid-bite.

“Impossible,” Decras breathed, his words echoing through the empty room like a distant storm. But even as he spoke, he knew that his words were false.

A tiny chunk of his power had been bitten away. It was so small that he had no doubt it would regenerate within a few mere years, but it was there. Disbelief swirled within him like a raging sea and he cast his mind inward without an instant of hesitation.

His surprise only grew stronger as he looked upon his Divine Rune. For several long minutes, he could do nothing but stare. A chunk had been ripped free of him. It should not have been possible.

He had lost small segments of power before. Revin had consumed a gift Decras had given him, using the connection to siphon a tiny segment of power away. Wizen had done much the same with an ancient artifact that Decras had lost a long time ago. Noah had repeated the trick with a few droplets of his blood.

But this — this should have been impossible. His power had not been stolen by someone using a physical catalyst. It had been bitten out of him. For the first time in thousands of years, Decras could not believe his eyes.

Fury burst through the dam of surprise and his features tightened. Decras extended a hand and a spear slammed into it, pitch black energy roiling throughout its length.

What manner of creature dares steal from me?

Decras extended his senses. The pattern of the thief still twisted through space, and his soul slipped through reality as he followed after it with a thought. A mortal claiming a minuscule portion of his power through a connection was one thing.

That was his fault. His mistake. It would be unfair to punish them for claiming the power that had been laid before them. But to take directly from his runes… there were some things that Decras could not allow.

The world twisted and collapsed around Decras as he followed the line of the pattern back to its source. He had absolutely no idea what could have known his pattern so well as to be able to rip magic away from him. It didn’t matter.

Such an insult was far too great to be allowed. He would not permit it. They would be ground out and crushed.

Color exploded through the darkness as Decras’ soul arrived at the location of the thief’s pattern — and Decras’ eyes widened in surprise.

He knew this place.

An obsidian platform trimmed with beautiful gold and stuffed to the brim with minute imbuements floated in a sea of void magic.

He was in Sievan’s domain.

Impossible. Sievan could not have taken my power. He could not comprehend my path. He could not comprehend any path. That failure — my failure — is why he cannot ascend beyond the limits of the flawed form I created.

Did that greedy little shit Noah take even more of my power?

Decras traced the pattern back to its source.

And then he froze. For several long seconds, Decras didn’t so much as move. His mind struggled to comprehend what he was seeing. It made absolutely no sense. It couldn’t make sense.

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He checked the pattern several times again, but his senses were far too powerful to be deceived. There was no denying what he knew to be true.

The pattern didn’t connect to Noah.

It connected to Lee.

And within the tiny demon girl, Decras sensed his power. It spread through her body, permeating and changing every single part of her being. But there was something more. Something different.

Sievan’s gaze lifted to the sky and he demon peered up at Decras. The Rank 8 demon knew Decras’ power enough to realize that he was there, even though the others were all blind to his presence.

And in him, Decras felt himself. The constant reminder of his mistake. A mirror of his own magic that corrupted every single demon, twisting their desires with his own and preventing them from ever having any true potential.

That piece was not in Lee.

Decras floated in the stillness of the void, his lips parting in awe as he stared down at the impossible scene before him. The power within Lee was not the same as his. The hunger for power was still there, but it was changing — and it changed more with every second.

It can’t be. A demon cannot break away from my influence. No matter how hard they try, demons are fragments of me. They are incapable of splitting away and becoming a truly independent being.

But in spite of that fact, Lee sat below him on the platform, entirely uncaring of what should have been possible. She was separating her soul from his influence.

Decras cast his senses out, searching for a trick — and his eyes went wider still. His entire body stiffened as they brushed across the tiny demon that Wizen had stolen from the afterlife.

Her body was permeated with his power, but her soul was completely independent of it. He couldn’t find a single scrap of his energy in her astral form. She was something entirely different.

There wasn’t just one demon that had found a way to ascend.

There were two.

Decras’ surprise was so great that all his anger evaporated. All he could do was float and stare, trying and failing to comprehend the scene unfolding beneath him. There was a solution to a problem that he problem that he had been unable to solve for years. One that he had been convinced was unsolvable.

But how? What could they have done that I could not?

***

Noah raised his hands to cover his eyes, gritting his teeth as a vortex of black energy engulphed Lee’s soul. It was like her entire being had gone into uproar — and after what she’d just done, he wasn’t surprised.

The ground trembled beneath him in an earthquake as cracks of thunderous magic roared overhead. Lee stood in the center of it all, her hands raised to the sky and head thrown back. Strands of the darkness twisted together into a point and spiraled into her mouth as she drew it into herself.

Noah didn’t know if it would be enough. Immense magical pressure bore down on him and the soul around him, and the huge white cracks running throughout it grew larger by the second.

He drew on every scrap of power that the Fragment of Renewal had to offer. There was only one thing he could do for Lee now, and he’d be damned if he let her soul collapse around him.

Healing energy poured out from his palms and fought to enter Lee’s soul. It battled to seal the cracks, but it was a losing fight. There was so much damage — so much power — that the damage was appearing faster than the Fragment of Renewal could knit it shut.

Noah yelled into the howling wind, but his words were swallowed by the storm before they could even leave his mouth. There was nothing more he could do. He was a spectator, only able to help Lee from the sidelines.

Black flashes of magical energy lit the sky. Decras’ presence bore down on Noah, activating Sunder and sending the rune trembling in his soul. Despite the severity of the situation, he couldn’t help but be impressed.

Lee actually managed to pull it off. She ripped power out of Decras, and she didn’t even have his blood like I did.

The vortex around Lee thrummed and tightened, pulling together and twisting in on itself as more of it poured into her mouth. Her hands clenched and her back stiffened, but she continued to pull it into herself. It struck Noah that she was slurping Decras’ magic up like it was a giant bowl of noodles.

White light poured off the cracks riddling Lee’s soul and blood poured down her face from her nose and eyes. Her entire body trembled, but she didn’t relent. If anything, the weakness only pushed her harder. Determination burned within her eyes like two distant flames.

And then something shifted. The cracks growing beneath Noah’s feet slowed. Then they stopped their advance. Pearlescent energy twisted within them and began to knit the damage shut.

The breath in Noah’s chest caught.

More of the cracks slowed their growth. The vortex weakened, and the last of its power vanished between Lee’s lips.

Rivers of white energy exploded out from Lee’s feet and twisted through the floor of her heavily damaged soul.

And, to Noah’s disbelief, the cracks riddling the darkness changed. They sharpened and changed their shape even as they fought to seal. The damage wasn’t made whole — but it was changed into something more.

She’d turned the cracks in her mindspace into a pattern.

There was a brilliant flash of light. Noah squeezed his eyes shut and raised his hands before his face. A wall of pressure slammed into his chest and he stumbled a step back, already forcing his eyes open as he squinted to find Lee.

She stood alone in the center of a sea of twisting black and white, the pattern of a rune carved into the bottom of her mindspace with cracks of soul damage.

Her soul had changed, but it wasn’t alone. Her body had joined it. Two jagged horns jutted up from her forehead, and her small, pointed teeth had grown a little wider. But, most noticeably, a pair of leathery, jet-black wings jutted out from her back like those of a bat.

Lee swayed.

Noah burst into motion, arriving right in time to catch her by the shoulders as she pitched forward. Her eyes fluttered as she squinted up at him.

“I think I did it,” Lee muttered. “Did I do it?”

Noah looked down at the rune flickering beneath him. While the other cracks in Lee’s soul were fighting to seal themselves, the white lines directly beneath his feet were unmoving. They were a pattern — and one that he could read.

Fragment of Lee

“Yeah,” Noah said, awe gripping his words like a vice. “You did it, Lee.”