I saw something that shouldn’t exist in this world. A winding labyrinth, equal parts ancient mazes and postmodern cityscape, stretched out and interconnected to parts of itself. It looked like someone had taken optical illusions and surrealist paintings, made them physical and interlaced them with towering walls, bunkers, drops into an eternal void, and higher-dimensional mathematical fields.

That was basically what I’d tried to do. I’d visualized the outer part of my mental defenses — or at least the middle part, those only someone who actually tried to intrude into my mind would get to — like that, working from the simple labyrinth I’d got from my training with Mother. I thought the result was pretty good, all things considered.

But it hadn’t been designed to stand up to Greater Spirits.

I felt Jideia’s presence keenly, and it even affected the visualized defenses directly. Instead of a figure appearing and having to find their way through the maze, like it was supposed to work, there was a dark pressure over everything, as if someone had put a grimy film over it, and then twisted it and pressed parts of it together.

I didn’t make an avatar for myself, at least for now, but just focused on trying to defend myself and drive him back. It was easier said than done. I didn’t consider myself a weak-willed person, but Sparky had millennia of experience and the power of what was essentially a god. I felt like I might have weakened him, there were subtle hairline fractures in the sense I got of his form, or maybe it was just because we were fighting in my own territory. But he still eclipsed me.

Luckily, I wasn’t alone. Even as Jideia’s presence advanced and parts of my illusory landscape crumbled into dust, breaking off from the rest and disintegrating into the void or just flattening out into nothing, my connection to Rijoko thrummed with power. The Moon’s attention bolstered my own efforts. I managed to stabilize the latter portion of it, at least slowing the Storm down.

I could also feel Mior. It felt like Jideia had put up a wall between us, but the spirit was currently linked too tightly to me to keep them out completely. In a distant, mostly unconscious corner of my mind, I still felt them. I got an impression of their anger and determination, and it bolstered me in a way pure power from Rijoko couldn’t have. Like hell would I let this douchebag cut me off from my friend.

I couldn’t stop Jideia’s advance, so I concentrated on what I would do after. I would probably have to let him at least into the surface levels of my mind, but I was still far from defenseless. And my connection to Rijoko was anchored in a fundamental part of my essence, so it might even be easier, in a way.

I deliberated letting the visualization fade, but in a pure contest of willpower, or just power, I definitely wasn’t in Jideia’s league. This was still my mind, though, and I’d take advantage of that.

When Jideia finally shattered the last of my outer defenses, I shifted my mind, pulling him with me into another layer. He could have tried to fight it, but instead he leaned into the pull, trying to use his will to bend it in his favor. I didn’t let that catch me off guard, though, and kept a grip on my intent, my father’s power steadying it.

The fact that Rijoko wasn’t doing more probably meant they were still fighting and he was beating Jideia in the outside, but I pushed that thought to the back of my mind, doubling down on my focus to stop my next step from wavering.

We appeared in a scene that seemed slightly more substantial. Which wasn’t to say it was clear or a memory of anything specific. Instead, I stood on a wide dirt path in a mist-swept landscape, with a few curving walls and electrical streetlights guiding my sight, overgrown gardens and a few other things around me. There were groves, yards, nooks and crannies where I could put things, and no overall organization that led to any destination in particular. I started walking, away from where I sensed Jideia.

His consciousness, or the part of it currently attempting to invade me, at least, had also condensed. There was an actual figure about a few hundred meters back, moving forward quickly. I didn’t let it hurry me, but simply stepped off the path and into another that wound its way in a curve off to the side. I was moving at the pace of a normal person, and even Jideia didn’t get much faster. That was one stringently enforced rule in this mental space: There was supposed to be no qi. A normal cultivator from Aran might not have been able to do this, since they had no experience with such a situation, but for me it was, in many ways, still the default state.

I paused as I reached a break in the wall, which showed an opening into a garden of trees with dark, drooping branches and thorny bushes. There was a pond to the side of it, by the path, and I caught a glimpse of my reflection. It was vague at first, but solidified in my view after a moment. Brown hair, not blonde, a serious gaze in eyes that couldn’t seem to decide on their color, the skin a healthy tan.

I kept walking. If this hadn’t been in my own head, I would have felt freaked out at the weirdness of it all. Instead, I was calm. Not because this space forced it, that was just the way my mind worked. I remained hyper-aware of Jideia’s presence and location, but my nerves were suppressed by a blanket of calm focus. I even felt my face break into an illusory smile. After all, I had a Greater Spirit coming into my mind, how often did I have access to an opportunity like that?

I withdrew just a little from my visualization. Not enough to shatter or fade it, just enough to pry my mental fingers into the edges a little. To influence it subtly. The next time I went off the path into another, the scene I happened upon was vague, misty, like something seen from the corner of my eye. It reminded me a little of what I’d seen when I was questing for a cure to the poison with the spirits before I unlocked my bloodline.

Except, this time, it was a vision of the life I left behind on Aran, not the one I was ripped from on Earth. I remembered the place from the Imperial palace, although the decorations were slightly changed. Soft music played, and I watched as a shadowy figure in the shape of a girl twirled in the middle of the room - after all, I wouldn’t remember a third-person view.

I didn’t know why this scene was significant … but then, I did. As I watched and listened to a teacher off to the side calling out steps, I remembered the sense of finally getting into the flow, finding joy in moving, in a way I hadn’t gotten on the training field. It wasn’t an earth-shaking or important moment, but it was emotionally significant to me. A moment when I’d become a little more me. From that day on, in my subconscious, the awareness had percolated that I didn’t need to be the best fighter, that it was alright to strive for and find fulfillment in other things. My passion for dancing, lukewarm to begin with, hadn’t lasted long, but in a way, this had set me on a course that led to my lab.

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I smiled and started walking again. As I did, the scene around me dissolved and reformed into a different situation.

I hesitated for a moment when it did, caught a little off guard by the intensity of the stab of emotion that went through me all of a sudden. It was like a bitter, sour taste on the back of my tongue. I’d seen the location itself several times before, too; another part of the Imperial palace. But the raised voices echoing indistinctly through the scene didn’t match the serene paintings and gilded woodwork. I pressed myself against the side of a corridor in a mirror of the movement I’d done back then. The viewpoint of the scene had shrunk, leaving me looking up at the world from a child’s perspective. A child that crept closer, even knowing what was going on.

Then one of the two figures arguing suddenly seemed to become more solid as it turned to storm off in my direction. Child-Inaris froze, and Carston hesitated as well. Their eyes met, and I remembered the way I'd felt as I shrank back from the angry eyes of the man I'd believed to be my father. The knowledge that my current self had had him executed did not help. Then Carston’s lip curled in a slight sneer and he stomped off, never to be seen again by me until after my soul journey.

I glanced at my mother, whose face was a cold mask not quite hiding the anger and sadness in her eyes, before I shook my head and strode forward, letting go of the memory’s impressions. No points for guessing why that one. But I realized that I could remember my relationship with Carston, and even Mother, much better now, as well as other aspects of my childhood.

Jideia’s presence seemed to grow stronger for a moment, drawing my attention to it. I kept walking, focusing on maintaining my calm. I reminded myself again that I didn’t need to defeat him. It was probably enough if I just stalled him, then Mior and Rijoko could take advantage and actually end the fight. And it seemed I was doing well enough so far.

So, instead of confronting him or pitting my willpower directly against his, I tried to redirect his presence and the disruption it caused in the construct of my mind, to make it work for me. I knew from what I’d learned in the caves of Old Riacis and later research, as well as my try with Isuro, that qi was able to store information and that my memories weren’t entirely gone. I just needed to regain access to them.

Anything that had happened before I gained my genius’ eidetic memory was probably harder to recover, but at least what happened since then had clearly been stored somewhere, maybe in the qi laced through my brain or something. I directed my focus on it and bent my willpower to the task of not just containing Sparky, but channeling the disruption he caused.

I blinked, my attention drawn to what passed for my physical surroundings here. I had kept walking and now passed another glade, where trees melted into stonework, creating a vaguely familiar looking courtyard. It was hazier than ever, and I repressed the urge to shiver as something inside me reacted to the sense of it.

I glimpsed a figure there, seemingly looking at me. It was vague, like something seen from the corner of my eyes, and nothing I could place. It felt weird, like a memory twice forgotten.

Then Jideia’s presence drew close enough to me that I could sense the effect it had on my surroundings, and I turned, inwardly swallowing a curse. The spirit’s form approached quickly, and now it was here, still a rolling cloud of qi, dark storm clouds, and lightning in the shape of a person towering over me.

‘You cannot hope to best me,’ he said, with an intensity that caused the scene around us to shiver and made me want to wince.

I forced myself to smile and stepped back, trying not to measure the distance between us and think about running. This wasn’t how it worked here. ‘Maybe not,’ replied slowly. Then I cocked my head to the side, clearly thinking, before I shrugged. ‘Luckily, I don’t have to.’

That was when the mental wall that separated me from Mior finally came down. I breathed a silent sigh of relief when their presence rushed to reunite with me, the storm of emotion at their core bolstering my own will. A new figure coalesced out of the air around us, glaring at Jideia with murder in their eyes.

What happened next was hard for me to follow, for all that it happened in the middle of my own mind. If asked, I probably wouldn’t be able to describe it. It was a raw struggle, one going beyond the physical or even just qi. My physical body finally made its presence known again with a pounding headache, and I flinched back before I even realized I was really doing it.

Then Rijoko reached through our bond, through me, and seemed to grab onto us. A dizzying moment stretched into a small eternity, and I almost burned under the fire of Jideia’s vehemence, though my father shielded me. Even a second later, I found it difficult to recall the experience. But then the landscape of my mind faded as we found ourselves back in the physical reality for good.

I flew backward a few steps, staring at the Storm, who didn’t move. He and Rijoko appeared entwined, and it took a moment for me to make sure that the Moon had Sparky contained, in a hold that was probably more metaphorical than real. But my qi senses told me the real state of affairs. Jideia was weaker, and Rijoko was victorious.

There was a long moment of silence.

‘And now what?’ I asked. I glanced beside me, noting that Mior had taken on their own manifestation again, though we were still deeply linked. The spirit stared fixedly at the Greater Spirits.

‘You have lost, Jideia,’ Rijoko said, though it was really a more complex communication that you could vaguely squeeze into those words.

Jideia wordlessly agreed, not without clear resentment.

Well, that was easy. I shook my head at myself. ‘Will you stop going after me and mine now?’ I asked. I gently tugged on my mental connection to Rijoko. ‘If not, we need to weaken you enough to make sure you don’t pose a threat.’

I couldn’t help hoping that Rijoko would just suck all the power out of Jideia’s manifestation, even if that might mean he remained more of a danger later. I felt Mior’s wordless agreement through our link, but also their caution and desire to make the best choice, not the easiest.

Something passed between Jideia and Rijoko that I had trouble parsing, and I suspected I didn’t even catch a fraction of it.

Finally, the Storm’s form nodded. He finally looked at me, then back at his nemesis. ‘It is agreed,’ he said. I felt more behind his words, an outline of what was to come. His influence in the Storm Continent, all two continents, really, almost gone, myself free to act as I saw fit.

I felt Mior’s distant satisfaction. Finally, Sparky would stop causing trouble for me, or he’d face the consequences. And his position was weakened enough that he had too many other problems, anyway.

I felt Rijoko’s attention shift as both of them glanced to the side. I followed their gaze, tensing up slightly. I’d been aware of the presence approaching, but only distantly, my focus had rested on what was happening between the spirits.

Elia was floating in the air without help. At the spirit’s regard, she inclined her head silently. I knew what this meant. The Sun’s qi was layered over her. She was witnessing this agreement.

I couldn’t help but clench my spear tighter for a moment. A part of me didn’t like how this had turned out at all. But I stepped on my dissatisfaction, then stabbed it and buried it in a dark alley. So what if Jideia would still be around and I didn’t get a tangible revenge. I got what I wanted; what I needed.

We’d won.