This was all a bad nightmare.

Mera’s leg was torn at the knee but she barely made a sound as Mesmer Steel grew and reformed into a limb that took its place. The stolen flesh was then thrown down the swirling darkness. It was not void anymore. Something was taking place inside. Swirling lights and strange energy, a breath of a new strange being.

It was also one of the most terrifying things Sunday had ever felt in his life. Like a single but eternally protracted beat of a new heart. Not an actual heart, but a man-made one. Something wrong.

He wondered if it was some sort of a ritual, and what his role in all of it was. How could he even intervene in the fight of those giants around him? He was too weak compared to them. Too ignorant of the world and all its secrets.

The Baron was already whole and fighting, hissing as he attacked the everchanging shape of the Prophet in bursts of movement. The thing was human for a moment, a monster in the next. The constant chuckling was mixed with something else. Something savage and absolutely fucking disgusting. Sunday hated it. He hated it so much that he almost charged into the fight himself, but that would be suicide.

Mera fought too, her face twisted in an inhuman mask that left little doubt she was something much different than the kind and mostly silent woman that had done so much for Sunday. A killing machine filled with anger and resentment.

Sunday wanted to help, pushed by the raging hate and feelings of inadequacy. A boat upon a stormy sea. Schemes, promises, powerful beings dragging him in one direction or the other. It was too much. He wanted to tear the Arcanum down, to make all those old bastards beg for mercy as he held a blade over their necks.

He knew he could use his spells and force them to manifest, despite the all-encompassing fatigue. Anxiety, hate, and terror had dispersed some of it away, but his body was sluggish and in no shape to move as fast as the others. Even at his peak, with the buffs, and with the full weight of his names behind his back, he was unsure he could even defend himself, much less attack.

However, he could do something else… Something he had already done and knew it would work. He didn’t dare do it to Mera, as her nature as spell-fused was something unpredictable, but the Baron was a prime target.

“Hey, Bloodfang!” Sunday screamed. “Come here you good-for-nothing manipulative leech!”

That got the Baron’s attention and he disengaged quickly, before turning his manic face toward Sunday. The Visage of the Berserk Moon appeared in the next moment, slower than usual. It was somewhat shaky and uncertain, but it consolidated quickly despite it all.

“Accept this! It’ll make you stronger!” Sunday said. He was brought down to his knees from the effort. The problem was not the essence, but him. He was too weak to manage his spells. Too weak to channel and control them properly. It almost felt like the moon was trying to take over the process and unleash something. He had to look into it further if he survived whatever this was.

Somehow, he managed to reign in the three months that flew out of the Berserk Moon. Moths of death and bringers of the red world. Sunday felt desire toward them. He wanted that power for himself, wanted to see the beautiful light and lines that shone upon the world as he sank deep into the state of utter instinctual dominance. They were not for him this time around, however. The moths flew toward the Baron and he almost pulled away, before his eyes widened in surprise. Then he laughed loudly and jumped toward them.

The change was immediate and dramatic. Where the vampire lords had simply grown faster and stronger due to being infused with one, the Baron took all three and his body changed. His proportions shifted, becoming more inhuman. A grotesque representation of what vampires were in myths and legends before they were given charm and beauty. A soulless monster born of death and bloodlust. Something profane and so far removed from the notion of divinity, it was perhaps the opposite of it. Or at the very least close to the opposite of it.

His fangs grew until they were as long as a finger, and his ears did too. His face twisted due to the enlarged red eyes that were like miniature moons themselves, and his arms elongated, ending in dark claws, each like a knife. Sunday could feel it all as if a burning fire had been lit before him. A wave of terrifying strength. A union of two pieces that perfectly matched.

In a flurry of movement and dark essence the vampire Baron returned to the fight. His attacks rendered the Prophet's regenerations almost worthless. Whatever it was that fueled the endlessly expanding flesh was struggling against the empowered vampire.

Sunday briefly thought of the Flowing Flesh spell Mera had and wondered if there was some connection there. The coincidence was too much… No, it couldn’t be it. But that would explain Mera’s presence somewhat. Was this some sort of a grand betrayal toward the city itself, a collusion grown wrong? Or was it something else entirely? His appearance had caused a brief confusion, and now he remained forgotten and hiding.

A vampire Baron, and a hidden spell-fused of ancient times, battling the Prophet he was supposed to find and kill. It was his task, it was impossible to the current him, and Chaotic Step had forced him into the crossfire. It was the first time it had directly put him in danger. Just when he thought he had started to get it under control… was he fated to be a pawn?

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A scream tore through the world and even the monster that was the Baron was thrown into the wall, along with the Prophet himself who returned to human form once again. Mera was the only one unaffected as she seemed to disappear and reappear some ways away. The crystal-clad bodies shook and the coffins fell apart.

Sunday cursed. Without them, the hall was an open space without shelter or columns to keep him safe from whatever was happening. The swirling darkness in the middle was rising too, as if overflowing and hardening in the next second. Tendrils of something foreign. It was not essence, nor any sort of divine power.

The solid darkness shook. Grainy. Wrong. Utterly mocking and profane. Colors grew in it. Gray, like the skin of the Baron, dark red like Mera’s steel, and sickly golden… Sunday could feel it in his bones. It needed something else. Something more. Something stranger and stronger. It was hungry. Craving. Like an insatiable little monster unaware of the notions of mercy or restraint.

It was so similar to the feeling Chaotic Step gave him… was it something to do with chaos itself? Power removed from the mortals and the Divines.

I should’ve scoured through that library like my life depended on it. Fucking damn it.

“It needs more,” a voice said. The Prophet. His limbs had turned into mouths, smiling and bloody. “It needs a final ingredient.”

Sunday saw him through the clear warped crystal. He was talking seemingly to himself, but his eyes roamed about, searching. Lusting.

Two oddly human eyes, filled with endless laughter and sorrow at the same time, met his. It was like Sunday’s mind was a feather falling into the fire, and he screamed. There was a bug crawling in his brain. It tried to find purchase, to needle itself in, to make him laugh.

No! No! NO!

A pulse.

A beat of a heart.

The vision of a tree growing alone amid the broken gravestones. A tree of poison and life. The bug was extinguished like a candle flame trying to fight a mountain of stone. Sunday swayed in place and closed his eyes tight as a headache split his head.

The words of the narrator echoed in his mind.

***

“Stop! Stop! It won’t open like this!” the undead screamed.

Nysandra dropped him on the ground like a dirty rag. She didn’t like this. The walls before her were not like the rest. The quasi-spells fueling the enchantments here were older than the building itself. It was a special place, built long ago, dressed in a new façade to hide its true nature.

She hated the Arcanum and the bastards that ran it. Always scheming, always trying to come out on top.

She knew what was in that room. She could almost feel it, but it made no sense. If it was a Cauldron of Chaos, then this wouldn’t be a lost little region bowing to the tides sent by the rest of the world. Cauldrons did what nothing else could. They created spells. It was among the greatest assets any power could hold, and among the worst.

She hated Cauldrons.

“What are you trying to create?” she asked.

The undead before her was strong. Very strong for a mage. At least at the early rank five, perhaps more. If she was not who she was he would’ve been able to fight her at least for some time. However, normal magi weren’t equipped to deal with Nysandra. Spells refused to hurt her, and it took a special bond to force them to obey.

The one on the ground had no such bonds, strangely. She could feel his constant struggle. The essence called out and tried to manifest. The spells inside him were rare and strong, and none of them were imitations.

Then why?

The undead coughed on the ground. His body was an unrecognizable mess of old flesh and dirty broken bones, but it didn’t seem to bother him. Those from the burial grounds were always a headache.

She hated them too.

“You can heal. I know you can. But know that if you don’t answer me, then I’ll just break you again and again until these doors are open. Nothing can bar my path to the one I’m charged with guiding. Not even a slave of the fucking Corpse Kings.”

The corpse smiled. Essence, dark and thick rose from each wound coating him like a blanket and twenty seconds later he was whole again, as if she hadn’t just used him as a battering ram.

“So you’ve been dragged into this? You of all the wretched beings in this world?”

He was stalling.

Nysandra moved and her hand sank into the disgusting and dusty flesh he wore. She grabbed at a rib, then pulled it out without ceremonies. No one was safe from the pain under her hands. No one.

The corpse screamed and doubled over. Dark essence appeared again, but broken bones were one thing. Missing one was another. Few spells could regrow them in a quick manner. His wasn’t one of them.

“If you’ve heard of me, then you know what I do best.”

“Y-yes, I know. I know. Lady Death—”

She grabbed his arm with one hand, her long and slender fingers bypassed the flesh of the vessel, and then pulled at the bone connecting the wrist and elbow. It was as easy as breaking a stick to her, but the flesh didn’t like it as it ruptured from the force, exploding. He screamed again, and his screams turned into gasps and sobs. It was always so weird when the undead reverted to humanity in such moments. She considered it a gift, in a way, but they never appreciated it.

Wasn’t it a boon to remember what it was to be human, after all? Didn’t it move their dead and shriveled hearts? She knew that if true pain was taken away from her, she would like to get it back. It was too useful to feel pain. It was a force of growth. Some undead forgot themselves due to their comfortable existence.

“I hate that name. What are you making with the Cauldron, you rotten worm? I know people who can read the truth from the shriveled remains of your brain.”

“A-ah, but they’re not here, are they? It doesn’t matter if they are. Your appearance makes all my plans obsolete. I know when to retreat. No treasure or spell is worth my little life,” he said.

The amount of essence his spell was outputting could compare to that of two full-rank five magi. A special one, of course. Nothing less from the cursed burial grounds, where legends of old opened their eyes to terrorize the world as pawns of chaos itself.

The corpse seemed to be looking at something, but not at her. He saw what was inside, then? Even he wouldn’t help the Divine by destroying one of those sent to kill them. Many thought their value was only because they were unique, strong, and unbound by the rules everyone had to follow when it came to growth and spells. Tools for political gains. The Corpse Kings surely knew better.

But if she was wrong, and he was someone else…

“I’m creating a weapon! A weapon that will change the tides if used correctly!”

“A weapon, huh? I smell bullshit. You don’t know, do you? That makes you less useful. Just a key I have to force into a lock, then.”

She pulled another rib out and watched as he fell over to the ground gasping. Then she broke it into two and stabbed it into an eyeball, her movements dispersing the essence that poured out from the healing spell.

Nysandra was not cruel because she liked it. But she didn’t hate it either.