Lan Arandor and Inquisitor Thaele stared speechless at the sky. For what felt to them like an eternity.

“Is an Ancestor attempting to break through the Void?”

Lan whirled around. His eyes were bloodshot; he looked ready to tear his hair out. “Who would be mad enough to do such a thing?! Here?!”

More elves were dropping in now, sweeping down on tufts of silver wind. Eyeing the sky nervously. All Priests and High Inquisitors. All of Ascended strength.

They all did double-takes at the sight. Looking to one another. Then back at the rising storm. As if hoping if they just stared at it long enough, it might go away on its own—like this was all some horrible dream…

But it only grew and grew.

All those present were Ascended. They had all been through tribulation lightning. Most of them had barely survived. And it had been the most traumatic experience of their very long lives.

The lightning crackling above made their trials look like a static shock.

The aura radiating down was breathtaking. It was impossible to stand there and not feel a sense of utter smallness. Very few things could make immortals of their caliber feel like that—like mere ants staring up as the shadow of the boot loomed over…

“Do something!” roared Lan Arandor, spittle flying. To no-one and everyone. “Do something, damn you!”

They all looked to one another again speechless, helpless. Asking the same silent question—but what?

Just then the air ripped open. A darkness opening up—a puncture in the fabric of the realm. A tunnel through space.

And out stepped a old elf dressed in fine silks, with thick braids of white hair going down to his waist. An elf of regal bearing and stern striking features. He had a face meant for imperial coinage.

A vast aura blasted out. Glowering over all present. Dozens of gasps, all at once—

“Ancestor!” cried half the elves there—the ones who still had their wits about them. They knelt.

This was the current head of House Valoran—the Morning Dew Sage, and former Patriarch of the World Tree Faction. Zin Valoran.

One of the true pillars of the World Tree Faction. An elf who had been in deep seclusion for thousands of years for most of this Chaos Cycle. Up until this moment.

Zin did not look pleased in the slightest to be here. “What in the Nine Hells is this?” he snarled.

Before anyone could muster an answer, another void split the air.

And out poured a second aura, just as formidable. A proud old woman wielding a staff as tall as she was, pure-white, matching her ruler-straight white hair.

Ancestor Valia Rowan—former Matriarch of the World Tree Faction. Head of House Rowan, the second of the Faction’s Great Houses. She surveyed the scene with a wrinkled nose.

Then her pale gray eyes began to shine, staring up at the storm. Her hair lifted off her shoulders, hovering weightless; a pale halo flickered over her. Her eyes unfocused for an instant, seeing past the surfaces...

She turned a harsh gaze on Lan Arandor. “This Tribulation Lightning,” she said. “Is yours, Lan Arandor.”

A stunned silence. Lan went even paler, if possible.

“…Ah,” he croaked. “I… see.”

Then his cheek began to twitch. He turned on his Chief Inquisitor, trembling. But before he could get a word out—

“What have you done, Heir Arandor?!” Ancestor Zin’s aura exploded over them all. Nearly as suffocating as that of the lightning above. Promising violence.

“I—” Lan choked. Even his composure was starting to crack under all the pressure—you could see it in his trembling face. The panic started setting in, twitching down the muscles of his cheek—

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He seemed to be realizing, suddenly, just how much trouble he was in.

He dropped shaking to his knees. Bowed his head.

“I have made a—a grievous miscalculation,” he choked out. “Honored Ancestors—if you would kindly lend me the strength to face down this trial—I, and my family, will remember this! I swear it!”

The Ancestors looked at each other. And nearly at the same time, snorted.

“You have shamed your Faction today,” snapped Valia. “This burden is yours alone to bear. You may seek help from your own Ancestor if he sees fit to save you.”

Lan’s head jerked to the skies—“Ancestor Eldrin! I beg of you—I—”

He was scrambling for words now; lightning cracked across the clouds, brighter and brighter, and an angry growls of thunder rolled across the bough—“I can yet be of service! I have done right by you, all these years—I was overzealous, perhaps, made a mistake—don’t I deserve a second chance?!”

His voice was cracking near the end.

Silence.

“It appears you are on your own,” said Ancestor Zin. The two Ancestors stepped back into the void—and vanished without a trace. Leaving the rest of them stranded there. Alone.

Then the screaming began.

The Inquisitors dashed away as fast as their moving techniques could carry them. The Priests were screaming, leaping off the topmost bough so hasty were they to get away.

“No,” snarled Lan, staggering to his feet at last. “I refuse to accept this!”

His scream was nearly lost in the howling winds.

“What—you think to come to my home and slaughter me at my doorstep?!”

He kept roaring at the implacable Heavens. Trembling, he took out his staff.

“Inquisitor Thaele! Man the defenses!”

Then he looked around, and realized even his Chief Inquisitor had abandoned him. He was alone.

He let out a strangled cry—half rage, half frustration—“Bastard! Fine, then! I'll do it myself!”

He rammed his staff deep into the bough. Instantly the World Tree began to hum. Those dense layers of leaves rippling down the canopy all began to glow, began to flutter though there was no wind.

A shield blossomed high above. A new higher canopy, one made of pure essence, fielding ethereal green leaves, borne aloft on the Laws of the World Tree itself. Laws so profound they nearly touched the Laws of Life.

The storm-clouds stopped swirling. Sagging so heavy they seemed about to burst. Looming so large over the tree they seemed to blot out the sky.

Then a single bolt of lightning crashed down. A perfect streak of jagged white. The manifestation of a single Law.

It was the last thing Lan Arandor saw.

That lightning crashed through that canopy shield. Shattering it with contemptuous ease—not slowing for even a moment.

Lan opened his mouth to scream.

Then he was lost in the blast. There was only light. No sound save for a high shrieking static, echoing down the breadth of the realm…

For a time that was all there was.

Then the light faded. The smoke cleared. Unveiling the extent of the destruction.

The entire upper bough of the World Tree had been roasted clean off the blackened branch.

As for the elf who had once stood there… not even his soul was left intact.

PUNISHMENT COMPLETE.

***

Observatory

Steelheart Conclave

“Eat shit!” cackled the Barbarian Sage, slapping a knee. “That’s what I’m talking about! Oh, me…”

Then, begrudgingly—“Good one.”

He shook his head, snorting. “That Noughtfire… he’s a wily old fart, alright.”

***

Lightning Constellation

Azure Flame Faction

A bolt of lightning flashed across Noughtfire’s scrying glass. He took in the aftermath. Nodded. Closed his eyes.

Burnwater knew that look of quiet satisfaction.

Noughtfire did not meddle in worldly affairs. He did not even meddle in the affairs of his own Faction—there were Patriarchs who came and went having hardly exchanged more than a few polite sentences with him.

Every so often, though, some fool thought to rouse his ire. Then the world would be reminded why he had once earned the title, ‘the Sage of Scorched Earth.’

“That makes for one of them,” mused Noughtfire, stroking his beard. “There remains one more.”

The scene shifted.

To a prison. An obsidian well dropping deep into the bowels of the realm. Golden runes lined the walls, glowing softly.

***

Superdungeon

Floor ???

Thunderclouds gathered overhead.

Gilgoroth’s six slitted red eyes all narrowed at once. Then went quite wide.

For a second its horror of a face went still.

Then that it began to thrash, batting its many wings, struggling to break free of the chains piercing it down its length. Screeching, making a sound like steel shredding on glass.

But it was no use.

It let loose indiscriminate attacks. Furious, desperate. Blasting out nothing-Laws, pure voids that swallowed up all the lingering essence they passed, swallowing up every last particle of air, flaring out as they went…those voids were borne of high Laws indeed.

But the System was written in higher Laws still. Laws as fundamental as the forces that lit the stars, that shifted the planets in their orbits, that held particles together at the tiniest of levels.

Tribulation lightning descended.

A great blinding flash whited out the well down its full length.

There was one last awful screech.

Then there was silence at the bottom of the well.

Monster Emperor Gilgoroth lay there twitching. The vast majority of its draconic body had been reduced to steaming slag, a toxic puddle mucking out the bottom of the well.

It gave one final furious wail. Its eyes sealed shut.

It was forced into a long hibernation. From which it would not wake for aeons.

PUNISHMENT COMPLETE.

***

Superdungeon

Floor 77

System has detected Massive Internal Tampering

Participants have been subjected to unfair challenges

Restoring balance…

Challenge Difficulty: Impossible

Calibrating compensation…