Weeks earlier…

Somewhere hundreds of miles away from Percival and the [Hollow King], a certain [Daemon Autarch] was standing alone at the snowy foot of a mountain. She narrowed her eyes at the monolith of stone, staring at it as if through sheer force of will her gaze might be able to pierce through miles of earth and grant her vision of what lay beyond.

“My [Liege], is that you?” The familiar voice came from above. Eurymedon, the many-limbed [Daemon of Eyes], flew down to stand beside their [Liege]. “May I ask what you’re doing here alone at this time of night? Is something bothering you? Something I can help with?”

Melpomene turned and gave her most trusted advisor a smile. “Hello, Eurymedon. No need to worry. I’m just out here because…” She spun her hands, trying to come up with an excuse that wouldn’t make her sound immature.

She couldn’t think of one, so she decided to change the subject. “Well, it’s a silly reason. One that neither of us should bother ourselves with, not when there’s so much to do before spring! Come on, let’s get back to camp.”

Melpomene cast one last half-frustrated, half-forlorn look at the impassable mountain range behind her, and then she started off back to camp.

A hand stopped her.

“My [Liege], if something is troubling you, it is important. Whatever is on your mind, I wish listen.” Eurymedon looked away shyly, but the effect was diminished by their radial symmetry that made it look like they just rotated in place. “But I will, of course, understand if you don’t wish to trust me with—”

“I would trust you with anything, Eurymedon!” Melpomene interjected. “I would trust you everything! It’s just that... It’s just…” Melpomene floundered, searching for the right words. “It’s just a little embarrassing, is all.”

Eurymedon took some time to seriously consider Melpomene’s worry before responding.

“My [Liege],” they said, “I have been your most steadfast believer for decades. I believed in you from the very beginning, and I will believe in you until the very end. I always knew you had the potential to change Terra for the worse, and you’ve already succeeded beyond all I could have ever dreamed. Please, my [Liege], believe me when I say that nothing you could ever say would make me think any less of you. To me, you shall always be the most dastardly, deceitful, and domineering [Villain] to ever walk the land, and nothing will ever change my mind.”

“…You mean it?”

“Of course, my [Liege].”

“Like, you really mean it?”

“Of course, my [Liege].”

Melpomene pursed her lips. “And you promise not to laugh?”

Eurymedon smiled reassuringly, their myriad mouths all gleaming with rows of sharp predatory teeth in that horrible way that always put Melpomene at ease. “Of course, my [Liege].”

Melpomene let out a breath.

Despite Eurymedon’s repeated assurances, Melpomene had to steel her nerves before she spoke. The childishness of her concern was simply too embarrassing to speak aloud, but eventually, she mustered her courage and forced the words out her mouth.

As dramatically as she could, she leveled an accusatory finger straight at the mountains, pointing through the [Titan’s Fingers] to gesture at what lay beyond. She spoke, but her words came out more whiney than she would have liked.

“It feels like something really Evil™ is going on over there, but no one invited me!”

A moment of silence passed.

And then another.

And then another.

“I’m… I’m glad that you felt comfortable enough to share that with me,” Eurymedon said with a suspiciously even tone.

Melpomene narrowed her eyes. “You promised you wouldn’t laugh.”

Every one of Eurymedon’s many mouths were sealed shut, but their central column was vibrating uncontrollably. “I’m… not… laughing,” they squeezed out between undulations.

“But you want to!”

“But… I’m not!” Eurymedon’s silent shaking redoubled. A tear actually came to one of their eyes, but they wiped it away so quickly Melpomene almost missed the motion.

“Ugh! I never should have told you!”

Out of frustration, Melpomene turned around and kicked a rock. It thunked off her metal boot and slammed into the side of the mountain with all the force of a bullet fired from one of her handcannons. The rock was pulverized by the impact, and it smashed a spiderwebbing crack half a dozen meters wide into the mountain’s side.

Melpomene wasn’t looking at Eurymedon anymore, but she could feel the ground beneath her start to vibrate. Her lieutenant’s stifled laughter must have grown to the point where they were literally shaking the ground!

“Uh, my [Liege]?”

“No, go ahead and laugh. It’s fine.”

“No, my [Liege], that’s not what—”

“Don’t worry about it, Eurymedon,” Melpomene interrupted. Her second-in-command’s voice was surprisingly stable now, but from the shaking Melpomene could feel through her feet, she knew Eurymedon’s silent laughter was growing by the moment. “It’s my fault, anyway. If I hadn’t asked you not to laugh, you wouldn’t have even wanted to laugh in the first place. Kinda funny how that works, don’t you think?”

“My [Liege], I think you should—”

“I know what you’re going to say, and yes, you’re right. In all honesty, now that I’ve said it out loud, my worry doesn’t seem like that big a deal. So what if someone is doing Evil™ without me? That doesn’t change the fact that—”

“My [Liege], look up!”

“Huh?”

The shaking had grown the point that even Melpomene’s custom-fitted armor was starting to clatter. She looked up, and there was an avalanche headed straight for them.

“Shit!”

Without wasting another second, Melpomene sprouted wings from her back and took to the air, Eurymedon not far behind.

The two of them avoided the avalanche with room to spare, but the rushing wall of snow and stone passed them by at such speed that it still felt too close for comfort. It was like watching the white wrath of Terra herself sweep across the land with all the weight of the ocean.

Melpomene and Eurymedon hovered in place and watched it all unfold, silent and utterly transfixed. The thunderous roar of the charging snow was so loud that Melpomene couldn’t even hear her own thoughts.

Wheresoever the tide passed, the land was simply undone. Not a tree remained standing, and not a boulder lay undisturbed. In a matter of minutes, an area the size of the Daemonic Capital was simply… swept clean. Forever transformed by a stray thought of Nature. Gone.

Luckily — or perhaps it would be more accurate to describe it as a result of procedure — Melpomene’s army were encamped atop a hill far enough away and high enough up that they were unaffected by the avalanche, but the proximity of the disaster was still enough to give Melpomene pause.

Such power, she thought. That’ll be mine one day.

Where the thought came from, Melpomene didn’t know, and replaying the words in her head, it sounded absolutely ridiculous. She was already a [Tier V] classholder and [Liege]. She was at the apex of mortal power! How could she become stronger than she already was?

Well, I suppose there is [Tier S] and godhood and all that, but is it even possible to become a god anymore? Do I even want to become one?

Melpomene brushed the thoughts aside. She had more important things to do right now. Her camp looked unharmed, but it would still behoove her to go and check in on her troops personally.

She was just about to fly down and do just that when Eurymedon stopped her.

“Wait, my [Liege]. The troops are unharmed, but I believe I see something. Is that… an arch?”

Eurymedon gestured toward the mountains, and Melpomene followed with her eyes. About five hundred meters up from where they’d been standing earlier, there was indeed an oddly smooth shape carved into the uncovered side of the mountain.

“I’m not sure, but I feel like we should investigate. Why don’t you go check it out while I check in with the troops?”

“Hm… I will do so if that’s what you prefer, my [Liege], but might I suggest we reverse our roles? If you go personally to check in with the troops, it may signal to them that what just transpired was a near disaster. If instead I, your Lieutenant General, am the one who does so, it will communicate that you still care for their well being, but also that the avalanche was never a serious threat.”

“Ah, you’re right, Eurymedon. The Tactics of Thanatos, chapter one, truth twelve, ‘To the soldier, nothing is more frightening than their leader’s uncertainty.’ How could I forget?”

Melpomene shook her head. It was a minor oversight, but not one she would usually make. “You go to the troops, I’ll go investigate the arch. Oh, and by the way, remind me to stop kicking random rocks. That’s what, twice now this year that I’ve kicked a stone and accidentally caused a major collapse?”

Eurymedon chuckled. “Twice indeed, my [Liege].”

With that, the [Tier V] [Daemon of Eyes] flew back to camp while Melpomene flew toward the anomaly in the stone.

As it turned out, the shape Eurymedon had spotted was only a portion of an arch. She had no idea how large the arch was since part of it was still buried in the snow, but the portion that was visible to her was already about as tall as she was.

She began digging out the arch, using her wings to blow away the lighter snow and using her boot to carefully break apart the ice and stone debris underneath. She didn’t know how long the excavation would take when she began, but forty minutes later, she was done. It was about as wide as twenty [Daemon Shield Legionnaires] standing side-by-side and half as tall in the center.

More surprising, however, was the fact that beneath the arch there was a carved mural. The center of the carving depicted half a moon and half a sun spit right down the middle. The left half — the side with the moon — was sprinkled with stars arranged in familiar constellations, stylized piles of bones strewn around the edges. The right half, meanwhile, was covered in stylized sunbeams shining onto dozens of plants and animals that Melpomene knew Humans liked to eat.

At the bottom of the mural, spanning the line between day and night, was a heraldic ribbon. Having seen quite a few ancient murals and coats of arms in her time, Melpomene expected the ribbon to be inscribed with some sort of motto, but instead, it was blank.

“Odd,” she muttered aloud. She spent more time carefully poring over every single detail of the arch and the carving, searching for any hint about the thing’s purpose. “How old are you? How were you preserved so well? Why are you here in the first place?” she muttered.

As she went back to studying the ribbon, she noticed that it wasn’t just blank, it was positively smooth. Polished even. The entire carving’s lack of damage was already suspicious, but for something to be left in absolutely perfect condition was beyond strange.

Out of curiosity, Melpomene removed her gauntlet so that she could feel the stone’s texture with her own fingers. She gently brushed her index finger against the ribbon’s surface, and then—

PWHOUKH!

—she got hit in the face by a bolt of lightning

Melpomene was quite literally blown away. She was sent flying a dozen meters backwards, and if not for her wings, she would have suffered a half-kilometer fall down the mountainside.

She righted herself mid-air and looked up. She searched for any sign of an attacker, but found none. There wasn’t even a cloud in the sky. All she could see was the infinite expanse of night — bands of stars a million-millions strong shimmering among the cosmic dust.

She looked back down. Her army’s camp was on alert but undamaged by whatever just happened, so it seemed she was the only one who’d been struck.

Only after ensuring both that her surroundings were safe and that her troops were unharmed did Melpomene take stock of herself, and she was surprised to find that she was completely fine.

“My [Liege]! My [Liege]!”

“No need to be alarmed, Eurymedon. It seems like I’m fine.” Melpomene called out to her approaching friend. She flexed the fingers of her unarmored hand, shrugged, and put back on her gauntlet. “A tad pins-and-needles on my hand, but otherwise not even a scratch. Strange.”

“Where did the lightning come from?”

Melpomene closed her eyes and replayed the moment she’d been struck in slow-motion, trying to remember each detail as crisply as possible. She’d initially assumed the lightning came from above, but now that she took the time to peruse her memory…

“The mural attacked me? No, ‘attacked’ isn’t the right word…”

“The mural?”

“Beneath the arch you spotted. I excavated it and found a mural carved there. I touched it to feel it’s texture, and then pwhoukh! Lightning.”

“‘Pwhoukh?’” Eurymedon repeated, carefully enunciating every consonant. “That’s an odd onomatopoeia for lightning.”

“But it feels right.”

Eurymedon shifted a few dozen of their eyes toward the arch in question, and together the two of them approached to investigate.

“Wait, those words weren’t there before.” As they got closer, Melpomene gestured to the formerly blank ribbon at the bottom of the mural now filled with ancient-looking words Melpomene didn’t recognize. “Do you know what that says? The script is Old Daemonic, but the words are nonsense.”

Eurymedon squinted their eyes. One of their arms started scratching their head. “Perhaps you can try sounding it out phonetically? The script might be Old Daemonic, but the words themselves might be in another language. It was common enough in antedeum times for languages without writing systems to borrow neighboring scripts, after all.”

“Antedeum?” Melpomene asked, surprised. “You think this carving is older than the gods?”

“No… This style is too modern for that. At a glance, I’d place this mural somewhere between five- and… ten-thousand years old? Old Daemonic was ancient even back then, but people have been using pseudo-archaic pastiche to lend their works an air of timelessness since forever.”

“Huh. Hadn’t thought of that. Now, let me see…” Following Eurymedon’s advice, Melpomene tried mentally sounding out the words, and once she did, she couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Ha! Old Solarian! The words are in Old Solarian! They didn’t need to, but some bastard actually wrote down Old Solarian words using Old Daemonic script!”

“Truly?” Eurymedon asked through a giggle of their own. “What does it say?”

Melpomene slicked back her hair and puffed out her upper lip. “Mors Vincit Omnia,” she mock-declared, affecting a grandiose and nasally accent. “Death conquers all.”

The two of them were just about to break into more laughter, but then the earth rumbled.

All traces of humor left their faces as their training kicked in. They readied themselves for battle, but luckily, their preparation soon proved to be unnecessary.

Right in front of them, as if in response to Melpomene’s words, the mural split right down the middle. The half representing the night split away from the half representing the day, and they both swung outward to reveal a tunnel carved straight through the mountain.

The arch wasn’t just a border for a mural. It was a frame.

And the mural wasn’t just a piece of art. It was a gateway.

Melpomene looked through the gateway and down the tunnel beyond. It was dark, but the light of the moon provided enough illumination for her Daemonic eyes to see for over a mile. The tunnel was perfectly straight and stretched so far into the mountain that she couldn’t see the end of it.

Melpomene felt hope and excitement stir within her heart. If this tunnel led all the way through to the other side of the [Titan’s Fingers], she and her army would be able to launch an attack before spring — months earlier than anyone in the [Solarian Courts] would be expecting her.

Melpomene and Eurymedon each turned to the other and smiled. They pumped all eight of their collective arms into the air and screamed with joy.

“”SECRET TUNNEL!””

----------------------------------------

The Present. Soleil, Capital of the [Solarian Courts].

All Hells broke loose.

As Percival cast his spells, every [Sunlit Archer] and [Solar Cannon] with a clear shot fired. A torrent of arrows and radiant cannonballs closed in on Percival’s position from every angle.

BOOM!

Centuries-old masonry was annihilated in an instant. Buildings collapsed into sprays of debris, and the cobbled street was reduced to a smoking crater. When the smoke cleared, Percival was nowhere to be found.

“Up here!”

Percival and his companions had scattered into the air, borne upon wings of magic. Six seraphic wings bloomed from each of their backs, and weightless plates of alabaster steel trimmed in gold covered their forms. No matter what angle they were viewed from, they were each outlined in the aurum glow of Percival’s magic, giving them an odd two-dimensionality that them apart from the world.

Most subtly but perhaps most striking of all, every member of Percival’s entourage now had eyes veined with gold, and every one of their exhalations shimmered with specks of that same otherworldly radiance.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?!” screeched the [Hollow King].

High above, landing lightly upon a pulsating cable strewn with expensive-looking glass cherubs, Percival smiled. “Only what I believe to be right.”

He slammed his flanged mace down into the cable beneath his feet, bludgeoning the steel apart and severing it with a single blow. Divinity and mana burst into the air like a shower of sparks. Another salvo of projectiles passed through the area a moment later, but Percival had already flown away once more. Missing their target, the cannonballs exploded against other cables, weakening them or tearing them apart outright.

“IDIOTS!” screamed the [Hollow King], wheeling around to address its troops. Heavy ornaments fell from the destroyed cables and crushed a few soldiers who couldn’t get out of the way in time, but the [Hollow King] seemed less concerned with its troops’ lives than what they’d inadvertently destroyed. “Cannons, do not fire near the cables unless you’re certain to kill a rebel. Archers, fire at will. The rest of you guard the entrance to the tower. Viktor, keep close and make sure that apostate [Champion] doesn’t interrupt me.”

Two spines of branching bone erupted from the [Hollow King]’s back, bloody and raw. Tendons, muscles, and thin, membranous skin followed a moment later, squirming up to cover the osseous protrusions.

Borne upon giant, sickly wings ripped straight from a night terror, the [Hollow King] launched itself into the air, and its griffin-riding [Steward of Pain] followed close behind.

Overhead, Percival and his entourage were wreaking havoc. They still had no idea what the [Hollow King] was doing with all the power it was harvesting for its ritual, but it couldn’t be anything good.

They flew through the air, slingshotting themselves erratically from cable to cable to avoid predictable flight paths, slashing and bashing at the wires wherever they went. With every severed cable, the ritual became less stable.

Out of the corner of his eye, Percival watched as Gregory cut through half a dozen cables with a single slash, and the [Solar Guards] below were forced to dive out the way as the metal statues and bundles of coins that’d been attached to the cables rained down upon them.

Such a feat of strength should have been challenging for even Gregory, but he seemed to manage it effortlessly. He slashed through cable after cable after cable, all the while ricocheting gracefully through the air to avoid every projectile sent his way.

So too were Percival and every member of the [Nameless Vanguard] displaying power beyond their usual limits. They zipped through the air like the winds of a storm. They sliced through steel cables thicker than their arms as if the metal were wet paper. They were nigh invincible!

…And by dawn, they’d all be dead forever.

Percival happened to pass nearby Gregory as they both went about wreaking havoc, and in that brief glance of the other man’s eyes, he saw evidence of the price paid for all their newfound power.

Gregory’s irises were now frayed at the edges, and the veins of gold once contained within were now spreading across the bridge of his nose. Percival knew his own face must look similar, but he tried not to let the thought distract him.

[Dying Breath].

Unlike most other spells, it wasn’t fueled by the caster’s power but by the recipient’s very own life. No one knew how the spell’s mechanisms worked, but its effects were final. Come tomorrow, Percival, Gregory, and every member of the [Nameless Vanguard] would be statues of solid gold, and they would never breathe again.

With each shimmering exhalation, Percival could he could feel the gold spiderwebbing down his cheeks, but it worried him not. He was to die, and though the time and place — here and soon — were beyond his control, it gave him solace to know that he was to die for a purpose of his own choosing.

Severing his umpteenth cable and leaping out the way of a volley of arrows, Percival turned his head to notice the approach of the [Hollow King] and its lackey, the griffin-mounted [Steward of Pain].

He alighted onto a cable and readied himself to accept their advance. Even augmented by [Arms of the Seraphic Host] and [Dying Breath], he had no hope of holding his ground against the both of them at once, but then again, he didn’t need to.

“Play the objective,” he whispered under his breath. So long as the enemy classholders were focused on him, his allies could destroy cables with impunity. In total, barely a hundred of the ten thousand cables had thus far been destroyed, but rituals were generally fickle things. All Percival and his forces needed to do was destroy as many cables as they could, and the ritual would become unsalvageable.

“RETURN WHAT YOU’VE STOLEN!” shrieked the [Hollow King]. It flew at Percival from below, but en route it grasped onto a cable and flung itself in a different direction. It repeated this several times, flinging itself erratically from wire to wire until Percival, wrong-footed and dizzy, found himself defending against a plummeting strike from above.

Claw met steel as Percival blocked with his mace, but the force of the blow made his knees buckle. The weight of the attack stretched the wire beneath his feet and threatened to pin him in place, but just as the [Hollow King] swiped with its other claw to gore into Percival’s side, Percival slid his feet out from under himself and fell backwards, dodging the attack and allowing the taut wire to thwack straight into the [Hollow King]’s torso with all the force of its own strike.

During that brief exchange, Percival had lost track of the crimson-armored [Steward of Pain]. He swiveled his head in search of the other man, but his efforts proved too little too late as an unseen morningstar crashed through his neck.

The blow shattered part of his armor and nearly decapitated him in a spray of torn flesh, but Percival managed to concentrate divinity into his feet and [Hyperlight Step] away.

Already he had a hand against the gouge in his neck and was casting a spell to accelerate the healing, but his pursuers didn’t let up. Between healing and fleeing, he could only choose to do one effectively, and was forced to choose the latter.

He felt himself go lightheaded from blood loss within seconds, but he knew [Dying Breath] would keep him in the fight as long as he could avoid another devastating blow for the next few minutes.

“Coward! Hypocrite! Weakling!” cried the [Hollow King] as it and its [Vassal] gave chase. “You call yourself a [Paragon of Charity]? You are naught but a thief doling out ill-gotten gains to satisfy his own vanity!”

From over a hundred meters away, the [Hollow King] wrapped one of its claws around a cable, and before Percival’s fuzzy mind could realize what it was doing, it moved.

It latched onto the currents of power flowing through the wire and used them as a catapult to launch itself forward faster than a cannon shot.

Percival tried to dodge, but the [Hollow King] predicted his movements perfectly and intercepted. It was on top of him in an instant, crashing into the former monk’s chest claw-first with enough force to level a building.

“Kuh!”

Percival felt claws rip through his chest. His ethereal armor shattered, his face got covered in his own viscera, and the air got knocked out of his lungs — assuming, of course, that his lungs were still there in the first place.

The two of them slammed into the side of the Torr Royale, and Percival felt his head whip back and crack against the magically reinforced stone, a crater forming at his back as chunks of limestone and granite showered down onto the square below.

Blood trickled down from his eyes and his mouth, and the back of his head felt wet.

“SURRENDER!”

The [Hollow King] reared back for another strike, and Percival blacked out.

----------------------------------------

Percival is reliving a memory.

The bottom of a hidden ravine, somewhere deep within the mountain range known as the [Titan’s Fingers].

Above, a blizzard rages, but the ravine is a shelter from the storm.

Naked, alone, and poisoned, Percival is a shattered mess of flesh and bone. He lays helpless on the cold stone floor of the ravine. He has taken a great fall, and he will soon perish.

Everything has gone wrong, and though it is all the [Hollow King]’s doing… Percival can’t help but feel that his own ineptitude is ultimately to blame.

If only he had been more cunning, perhaps the [Hollow King] wouldn’t have been able to burn away a majority of his army’s rations in the dead of night and frame him for the murder of the Fae Prince.

If only he had been more charismatic, perhaps the Fae would have allied with him against the [Hollow King] without needing him to prove his sincerity by going to them ‘naked, alone, and with bloody tears of regret running down his face.’

If only he had been more knowledgable, perhaps the blizzard wouldn’t have caught him unawares, that many-faced monster wouldn’t have bitten him, and he wouldn’t have fallen down the ravine.

If only, if only, if only!

But in reality, Percival knows that he is neither cunning, nor charismatic, nor cunning.

In reality, the [Hollow King] is winning, and it is all Percival’s fault. Gregory and the [Nameless Revolt] will need to stop the [Hollow King] without him, because he’ll be too busy being dead.

Bleeding and broken at the bottom of a ravine, Percival can do nothing. Even his ability to heal — his only skill of value — now evades him. His hands can not move and the poison in his heart disturbs his divinity, and so he is left with no option but to die.

A new monster, different from the first, approaches to finish him off and consume his flesh. It is a giant scorpion-like creature with six needle-point legs, four great pincers, and a barbed tail dripping with venom corrosive enough to make the stone earth sizzle.

The monster rears back to end its prey.

And then, like an unexpected breeze on a blistering day, a stranger intercedes.

What happens next happens in an instant.

The stranger alights onto the ground from somewhere high above. The sleeves of his simple night-black robes billow out from him like the wings of a raven, or perhaps an angel of death. He wields an ordinary farming scythe that looks older than time.

He strikes.

Percival’s bloodshot eyes have no right to catch anything but a blur, but like the first bands of night breaking through the longest summer day, the stranger’s strike demands to be seen, and so seen it becomes.

It is as if the world slows in his wake, and Terra herself holds her breath to savor every ripple of his body flowing through her space.

The stranger takes two twirling steps forward, spinning one full turn to gather momentum. His back foot plants firmly beneath him, anchoring him to the ground. His lead foot lands perfectly to align his him with his target. His hips snap taught, exploding with force. His core, solid as steel, is the perfect scaffold upon which his muscles do their work. The end of an immaculate chain, his arms and hands bring his weapon to bear.

With a single reaping slash, the scythe moves, and the monster is cut down like a stalk of wheat.

The stranger turns to Percival’s broken form and smiles. His skin is bone-white. His eyes are solid orbs of blue-grey devoid of both iris and pupil. His hair is short, full, and argentine. His wrinkles speak of age, but his bearing speaks of youth.

He is so beautiful that he cannot be real. He is so terrible that he must be.

His smile falters, and a curious look forms on the stranger’s face.

“You have healing magic. I can smell it. Why don’t you use it? If you haven’t noticed, you’re dying.”

Percival tries to respond, but he is missing a jaw. He can’t move a muscle. He can barely blink. He still feels his poisoned divinity swimming around within his heart, but he knows that in his current state, he cannot move it to form a spell.

“Of course you can,” says the stranger, speaking as if he can read Percival’s mind. “Just don’t use your hands.”

Cast a spell… without his hands? What the stranger asks for is impossible.

“It’s entirely possible,” the stranger says, again responding to Percival’s thoughts. “Watch. First with hands…”

The stranger casts a simple Spark cantrip using one hand, but he does so with deliberate slowness so that Percival can follow along. The fingers of his hand dance in intricate swirls as if plucking at the very strings of reality itself, and after a few moments of this pass, a spark of blue light flashes to life before quickly winking out.

If Percival’s lungs weren’t already pulverized, the demonstration would’ve taken his breath away. He knows from experience that spellcasting is highly dependent on rhythm, and beyond a certain point, casting a spell more slowly becomes exponentially more difficult. The stranger’s demonstration was absolutely glacial, hinting to a level of mastery Percival can’t begin comprehend.

“Now with less hands…” The stranger casts the cantrip again, but this time his hand waves lazily through the air. Unlike his previous casting, swirls of arcane mana escape from his fingers, and Percival is able to notice that the escaping mana moves in exactly the same patterns as the stranger’s fingers once did, as if the magic was ‘filling in the gaps.’ Percival also belatedly realizes that the stranger’s prior casting was the first time he’d ever seen a spell cast without any sort of magical light leaking from the caster’s hands.

The stranger’s second ‘less hands’ casting seems to require more mana, but it takes the same amount of time and results in a spark nearly identical to the first.

“And now,” the stranger says with more than a little flourish, “no hands at all.”

Both of his hands drop to his side, but true to his word, a spell begins to form. Its shape is carved directly upon the air in lines of pale blue light, and in a matter of a mere dozen seconds, the spell is completed. The true meaning of Spark is writ upon the world, and a spark of light is made real.

“To cast a spell is to imprint its shape upon the world with your hands, and to call forth its name with your voice,” the stranger explains. “Most take it for granted that you can forgo a spell’s name by expending some extra mana and force of will, so who’s to say you can’t do the same for the finger waggling?”

The stranger nods his head encouragingly. “Now you try.”

A thousand doubts enter Percival’s mind all at once, but he decides to push them all aside. Even if he is fated to die, there is no harm in trying.

He tries swallowing to ready his resolve, but he can’t.

He tries to close his eyes in order to concentrate, but he can’t do that either.

He tries to trace the shape of an overcasted [Tier III] [Mend Wounds] spell — the simplest spell he thinks could save his life — but he fails without even drawing a single line of divinity upon the air.

He tries again. This time he creates faint wisps of sickly gold-green, but again, he fails.

He tries again. He creates a single line, but again he fails, and his poisoned divinity dissipates into the air.

He tries again, but this time he gets absolutely no result.

He tries again, and though his consciousness is fading faster than before, he deliberately goes slow in order to ensure that every line of his intent is perfect. He makes it nearly a fifth of the way through the spell’s shape before again, he fails.

He tries again, and fails once more.

And once more beyond that.

Barely hanging on, he forgets everything but the task at hand and tries again, and again he fails.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed, but he’s amazed that he’s still alive. He briefly wonders if everything since the stranger’s appearance has been a hallucination. For another moment, he entertains the thought that he’s already dead, but he quickly pushes that thought aside too.

Percival imagines himself taking a deep breath.

He only has one more shot to save his own life.

He doesn’t know how he knows, but he knows it to be true.

It’s now or never.

Again, Percival tries to mend his shattered body. He brings every iota of his remaining focus to bear. He visualizes the shape of his spell perfectly. He sharpens his resolve into a pen capable of writing his will upon the world, and he knows what he must do.

Lines of polluted gold-green light trace themselves through the air in the vague shape of a spell.

The attempt begins better than most, but again Percival’s doubts resurface.

He’s never before cast a spell perfectly, even while in perfect health. Golden light always bled from his hands. He’s never been perfect before, so how arrogant must he be to assume he can become perfect now?

He is weak. He is worthless. He has no idea what he’s doing.

The lines of his final attempt are fuzzy, crooked, and misshapen. They fade more quickly than they form, and within moments, the spell fizzles and fails.

On instinct, Percival tries to refocus by taking a breath, but he cannot. His neck is torn to ribbons, and his lungs are paste.

He cannot focus on the spell. He cannot see its shape. He cannot trace its lines.

He is in pain. His mind is in shambles. His consciousness fades.

He does not have the strength to survive, and so he will die…

…

…

“You’re a [Liege], aren’t you? I can tell by the fact you’re still alive.”

The stranger’s words yank Percival back from the brink. His still-open eyes refocus on the bone-white maybe-hallucination of a man that continues to speak.

“You have an army to lead. If you can’t live for your own sake, live for theirs.”

Impossibly, Percival feels a tear come to his eye.

He wants to rage. He wants to despair. He wants to scream for all the world to hear, but he can’t form a single word.

‘Can’t you see I’m trying?’ he wants to say. ‘I just can’t do it! I’ve always been a failure, but no one seems to recognize that fact but me. I want to be the leader everyone thinks I am, but I’m just… not. I’m not cut out for this! I’m just… I’m just…‘

“Just not strong enough?” the stranger asks aloud.

Percival’s eyes widen in surprise.

“No, I can’t read your mind. I’ve just lived long enough to recognize the face of self-pity when I see it — even if half that face happens to be missing.” The stranger smiles as if he’s just said something clever, and despite the fact that Percival is on the verge of death — or perhaps because of it — he can’t help but find the other man’s terrible joke just a little bit funny.

“In all likelihood, your next attempt will be your last, so you need to make it count. I’m going to give you a piece of advice, and you only have the time to hear it once, so I need you to listen. Ready?”

Without waiting for a response, the stranger takes a breath, and he speaks.

“Ask not what you have the strength do. Ask what must be done, and find the strength to do it.”

The stranger speaks the words in a practiced cadence, as if these are words he’s said often. Whether he is quoting someone else or repeating an idea of his own, Percival cannot tell, but either way, the words resonate with something deep in Percival’s bones.

He thinks of Gregory. He thinks of the thousands of names and faces waiting for him to return with news of hope. He thinks of his myriad countrymen who’ve already died beneath the rule of the monster he needs to stop.

Suddenly, Percival knows what he must do.

Time stands still. Time rushes by. Time loses all meaning.

He weaves the lines of his spell through the air, threads of gold stained with streaks of putrid green.

The spell has no right to succeed, but it does not waver for an instant.

Imperfect, imprecise, ugly, oafish, half-baked and horrid, Percival completes his spell in spite of all its flaws.

Percival’s flesh becomes whole. There is still venom in his heart, but that is a problem for later.

For the first time in who knew how long, Percival can breathe.

He breathes deep… and immediately passes out.

He is weak, but he is alive.

In retrospect, dying had never been an option.

----------------------------------------

Percival awoke to the pain of his right arm being blasted apart.

GLERSCHK!

“AAAH!”

I can scream, which means I can breathe, thought Percival, maintaining his internal composure despite the circumstances. That’s good news.

He must’ve only been knocked out for an instant. The [Hollow King] was still in front of him, one of its clawed hand pinning Percival through the chest and into the Torr Royale. Its other hand slid away from where Percival’s right arm had been, slithering over to rest gently atop his recently mended throat.

“Surrender, now,” the [Hollow King] commanded in a whisper. “Give me your name, and I’ll kill you quickly. Deny me, and I will immolate the soul of every Solarian on the continent.”

The words were spoken in a voice so calm and matter-of-fact that it took Percival’s bleary mind three-quarters of a second to realize that they were a threat.

So it doesn’t want to kill me until I give over my name. That’s even better news.

Suddenly, Gregory came flying in from the side to strike the [Hollow King] from behind.

Suddenly-er, Viktor the [Steward of Pain] and his griffin mount dove in from above, skewering Gregory through his leg with a lance before he could intercede.

Screeching like a peal of thunder, the griffin dug into the former [Champion of Sol] with its claws, wrapping him up in tackle and sending the trio all plummeting down toward Kingsblood Square hundreds of feet below.

That’s… bad news.

As his consciousness flickered, Percival tried to follow the falling tangle of armor, feathers, and blood with his eyes, but he couldn’t. The [Hollow King] clamped its claws around Percival’s chin and directed his gaze back toward its own faceless visage.

“Do not fear for them, little Percival. Fear me.”

----------------------------------------

“The Voxwraith,” declares the stranger.

After waking, Percival described the creature that poisoned him, and the stranger apparently knows its name.

“The Voxwraith?” Percival asks.

The two of them are walking eastward along the floor of the ravine. Snow, rubble, plant matter, and bits of fur, carapace, and blood are piled about everywhere due to the recent avalanches, but the debris is spread out evenly enough that traversal isn’t too difficult. In fact, the walk is pleasant enough that Percival allows himself the occasional moment to appreciate the rugged plants growing along the walls of the ravine. He even once spotted a snow- and stone-colored rodent scurrying along a mossy crack in the wall.

“Exactly,” says the stranger. “The Voxwraith is a rare creature that feeds off of spellcasters like yourself, so rare that I thought they’d gone extinct. It envenoms its prey with a remarkably adaptive concoction that disrupts the victim’s mind and magic via the creation of incompatible magical aspects within the host’s heart and brain. Once the victim succumbs to the venom, their body dissolves, and the Voxwraith gains both a new face and a new voice to add to its menagerie.”

Upon hearing the stranger’s explanation, Percival realizes that his mind is still foggy, as if he’s walking through a dream. When he looks inward and feels his heart, he finds that his divinity is just as tainted as it was before.

He tries casting a [Tier II] [Remove Poison] spell but finds the process to be more difficult than it should be. He’s in a much better physical condition than he was yesterday, but for some reason, his casting feels more sluggish.

He completes the spell, but once it goes off, he feels no change in his condition.

‘Odd,’ he thinks.

He goes to cast the spell again, this time overcasted to [Tier IV], but the stranger stops him with a hand.

“No use!” the stranger says with an odd cheerfulness. “The Voxwraith’s venom is especially tricky. Most antitoxin magic doesn’t work against it because it isn’t technically a toxin, at least as far as your magic is concerned. Because the venom’s already incorporated itself into your divinity, any spells you cast will get tricked into thinking the venom belongs there. If you’re any good at modifying your spells, you could manually tell a healing spell to get rid of the venom even though it technically isn’t a poison… but that would be like creating a healing spell that specifically destroys one particular half of your red blood cells. Certainly possible, but absurdly difficult and unintuitive.”

Half of the stranger’s explanation goes over Percival’s head, but he thinks he got the gist of it. If he wants to heal himself, he would need to modify a healing spell… but has no idea how to go about modifying a spell.

He wonders if perhaps the process is similar to the first time he used magic. A year ago, on the morning of the [Divine Apocalypse], he’d healed Gregory without the aid of a spell by just ‘asking’ his divinity to do it. He’d managed to perform a few other ‘spell-less’ castings since then, but never on purpose. Diverting a small avalanche to save a village, throwing up a barrier to save a soldier’s life, mending a little girl’s torn-up doll… It only ever seemed to happen whenever someone else needed help and Percival managed to forget about himself.

“I… don’t think I can do that,” Percival admits to the stranger. “Is there any other way?”

The stranger scratches his chin. “The Voxwraith’s venom is linked to the creature itself — thus how it’s able to steal your face after you dissolve from the inside-out. I suppose it’s possible for the venom to weaken if you get a few thousand miles away…”

Percival and the stranger both look up toward the mouth of the ravine. They find that the blizzard is still blowing as strong as ever. If Percival waits for the weather to clear, it could take weeks.

“…but I don’t think you’ll have the chance for that.” The stranger smiles a predatory grin. “No, no running. You’ll have to kill it yourself, your [Liegeliness].”

“K-kill it?”

“Of course! As I said, the creature’s venom is merely an extension of itself. End the monster, end your problems! …Well, at least all your problems that have to do with being slowly consumed from the inside-out by venom. Simple as that!”

Percival briefly reconsiders the possibility that this is all a hallucination. His perception of his surroundings are slowly but surely getting more dreamlike as the venom within him interferes with his mind, but the stranger’s advice has only helped him thus far, so he sees no reason ignore the man now.

“Alright then. So all we need to do is kill it?”

“No, not ‘we.’ You. You need to be the one to do it. The Voxwraith’s corpse will make for a perfect atonement, and I won’t interfere.”

Percival has no idea what the stranger is talking about. It takes him more than a few moments to figure out how to respond. “I’m sorry sir. I feel like all I’ve done so far is ask you questions, but… atonement?”

The stranger smirks. “No need to be coy. I recognize the Mark of Atonement when I see it.” The stranger takes two fingers and traces a line down from each of his eyes. “You healed the rest of your body, but you kept your ‘tears of blood,’ which means subconsciously, you wanted to keep them.”

Percival reaches up to touch his own face and finds that the two ’tears of blood’ he’d carved under his eyes are indeed still there.

“Sorry again, but I’m not sure what you’re—”

“Talking about?” the stranger interrupts. His smirk grows wider, and he waves his hand dismissively. “Alright, alright, I’ll play along, your [Liegeliness]. I know how important secrets are to your people, so I definitely don’t know what a Mark of Atonement is. I also haven’t a clue as to why a [Liege] like yourself is out here, naked and alone in the mountains, despite the fact you have an army bound to your soul. You’re certainly not searching for some way to redeem yourself in the eyes of your peers, that’s for sure.”

The stranger’s smile becomes pensive, and he scratches his chin. “Funny. I didn’t know the local Fae accepted Humans. Good to know. Or not know, I suppose.”

Percival has no idea what the stranger is talking about. “Sorry again… and sorry for saying ‘sorry’ so much, but I feel like there’s been a miscommunication here. I really don’t know what you think is going on.”

“And neither do I,” says the stranger with a wink.

This is when Percival decides that this is definitely all a hallucination, and he might even already be dead. He lets out an exasperated sigh but decides he might as well play along on the off-chance that following the stranger’s advice might lead him back to reality. Real or not, the stranger hasn’t led him astray thus far.

Suddenly, Percival realizes something obvious. “I’ve been rude. You’ve saved my life at least twice now, but I haven’t thanked you properly, so… thank you, sir.” Percival chuckles nervously and scratches at the back of his head, embarrassed. “I haven’t even asked for your name yet. In my head, I just keep calling you ‘stranger.’”

The scythe-wielding black-robed bone-white man’s smile grows knowing. “As I said, I know how these things work. If ‘the stranger’ I am, then ‘the stranger’ I shall be. I won’t ask for your name either, so don’t worry, you’ll have no need for mine. Oh, but as long as we’re making introductions, allow me to mention that I’m comfortable with any pronouns.”

Percival knows his letters, so he’s vaguely aware that ‘pronouns’ have something to do with grammar… but he’s never studied grammar. ‘Nouns’ are the action words, right? So being comfortable with ‘professional nouns’ must mean the stranger considers himself a man of action?

Percival nods his head. “I’ve always been more comfortable with amateur nouns myself, but I’d like to believe that when others are counting on me, I rise to the occasion.”

The stranger stares for a second, and then laughs as if Percival’s said something clever. Percival chuckles along, too abashed to ask what’s funny.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“Very well then, your [Liegeliness]! I’d guess you have five… maybe six days before the Voxwraith’s venom kills you, so you’ll just have to kill it first!”

Percival hesitates. “Do you really think I can do it? As I am now?” he asks.

The stranger considers the question for a moment, and then nods. “As you are now, I’m certain you’ll die!” The other man speaks the words with such enthusiasm that Percival assumes he’s misheard. Before he can ask for clarification, however, the stranger continues speaking. “But we still have a few days of tracking ahead of us, and I think I can whip you into shape before then.”

The stranger stops by the side of the ravine where lay the dead and dry trunk of a fallen tree. It must have fallen down from somewhere above, because Percival has yet to see a tree growing down at the bottom of the ravine. The tree’s trunk is thick, dark, and wound as tight as a braid of rope. The wood itself is surprisingly undamaged. Only one end has its bark slightly cracked — the end it must have landed on.

“Ironwood,” the stranger says, answering Percival’s unasked question. He grabs a sturdy-looking branch the length and breadth of a laborer’s arm and uses his scythe to sever it at the base. He holds the branch out for Percival to grab and unthinkingly, Percival grabs it.

The branch is surprisingly heavy for its size, and Percival nearly drops it before securing his grip. He comes to appreciate the wood’s name, for it truly feels like he’s holding a thick rod of iron.

“Tell me, your [Liegeliness],” begins the stranger, “how do you feel about killing monsters with a stick?”

----------------------------------------

RIIIIIP!

Percival was once again jolted awake by pain, but this time, it was because his left arm was being torn from his body.

He would’ve screamed, but he couldn’t breathe. The [Hollow King] had a clawed hand wrapped around his throat, choking the life out of him.

This… isn’t good news, Percival thought as he began covertly casting a—

“I did not permit you to rest!” The [Hollow King] peeled Percival’s limp form away from the wall and slammed him back into it, shattering more than a few already-broken bones. There might have been a subtle gold glow coming from behind Percival’s back, but nothing obvious enough for the [Hollow King] to notice. “Now tell me, little Percival, will you die alone, or do you insist on dragging others to Hell beside you? My patience grows thin. GIVE! UP!”

Gregory and the [Steward of Pain] were nowhere to be seen, but behind the [Hollow King], Percival saw the scattered members of the [Nameless Vanguard] destroying as many of the cables as they could. They were harried by arrows every step of the way, and most of them had already been hit at least once, but it seemed none of them were out of the fight just yet.

They were doing their job admirably, but even with Percival’s buffs, they simply wouldn’t be a match for the [Hollow King]. If Percival died now, they’d have no hope of disrupting the ritual on their own. The faceless monster could kill them all as easily as sunlight slayed the night.

They still need me. I’m not allowed to die just yet.

At that simple realization, Percival felt a wave of calm wash over him. His people needed him to be strong, so strong he would be. Simple as that.

Percival felt an invisible weight disappear, and the three patterns of gold hidden behind his back began forming faster than ever before.

Perhaps mistaking Percival’s peacefulness for resignation, the [Hollow King] loosened its grip on his throat.

“Say the words, and this can all be over,” the [Hollow King] crooned, the subdermal musculature of its head twisting its skin into a horrible facsimile of a smile. “Give me your name.”

Percival tried to mumble something, but the words wouldn’t form. Ever gracious and merciful — probably by its own reckoning at least — the [Hollow King] loosened its grip even further and leaned in to hear Percival’s words.

Percival coughed once, involuntarily spitting up some blood that burned away when it touched the [Hollow King]’s pure white robes. Then he spoke in a weak, rasping whisper that let loose the first of the three spells he’d been quietly casting ever since regaining consciousness.

“[hyperlight… step].”

Percival’s body became a stream of light, and he reappeared an instant later a hundred feet away, free but free-falling down toward the square below. By pure chance, he’d teleported directly into the path of a pair of arrows. They pierced his side, but he didn’t let the pain distract him from his completing his final two prepared spells.

[Non-Somatic Simulcast]: [Rapid Regeneration], [Divine Avatar].

Golden lines of light flew out from behind Percival’s back. They formed two intricate weaves of primordial scripts and abstract patterns — the shapes of Percival’s spells given form.

Simultaneously casting the pair of high-tier spells consumed more divinity than Percival could normally muster in so short a time, but [Dying Breath] allowed him to do so at the cost of further shortening his life.

[Rapid Regeneration] made it so that all his minor injuries were healed near instantaneously, but not with flesh. His open wounds and broken bones stitched themselves back together with sutures of golden thread. His gouged-out chest and missing arms regrew so quickly it were as if they’d reappeared from nowhere, but they too were forged entirely of unyielding gold. Even the veins of gold in his face thickened like the roots of a growing tree.

[Divine Avatar] took effect at the same time. As for what the spell did, Percival didn’t know. He’d never heard of it before, and neither was it his own creation. In fact, he’d had no idea he’d been casting the spell until the deed was done.

All he’d done was ask his divinity for a spell to help him find the strength to protect his people, and the spell had come to him fully formed. Simple as that.

A whirlwind of divinity shrouded his form.

The flanged mace he’d been wielding was gone — likely lost around the same time he’d lost his arms — but to replace the weapon, a million motes of shimmering light congregated within the palm of Percival’s now-golden right hand. A miniature tornado of hopes and dreams, the swirling lights slowly solidified, coalescing into a…

Into a…

Into a big wooden spoon.

Just a big wooden spoon, no different from the kind used to stir large pots of porridge.

Rugged. I like it, Percival thought, unable to keep his lips from quirking up into a smile at sight of his new ‘weapon.’ Feels like my spoon from back at the Abbey.

As for what the [Divine Avatar] spell decided to replace his armor with, the sight was even more outrageous. Instead of anything that appeared even remotely protective, he now wore a simple brown robe, no different from what he wore during his time as a monk. The cheap-feeling cloth even itched in all the same places.

Gone was the enameled plate armor that’d never felt quite right. Gone was the ethereal golden glow that set him apart from the world. Gone were the six wings of the [Seraphim].

Though [Arms of the Seraphic Host] continued to function for Gregory and the [Nameless Vanguard], the spell’s effects on Percival had made way for an enchantment both greater and lesser, both more complex and more simple, both otherworldly and mundane all at the same time.

Percival Commonblood the First and Only, [Tier V] [Paragon of Charity], [Liege] of the [Nameless Revolt], Voice of the Revolution, Companion to Divinity, Slayer of the Voxwraith, Bringer of Light, Unveiler of Truth, Herald of Hope and Warmth of the Sun — he set to the side all he had become in favor of what he had always been:

Percival the simple monk, maker of the soup, wielder of naught but a wooden spoon, a gap-toothed grin, and a patient ear.

The [Hollow King] regarded him from across the way. It looked as confused as a creature without a face could possibly look, but it didn’t take long for that confusion to morph into rage. “You mock me?”

Percival tried to respond, but before he could get a word in, the [Hollow King] charged.

It was upon Percival in an instant, but all Percival needed to do was lightly smack the back of its clawed hand to divert its momentum and send it sprawling through the air.

“We don’t need to do this,” Percival called out as the [Hollow King] righted itself.

“Silence!”

It beat its wings to rocket back toward the monk, but Percival hopped out of the way to land on another cable. A volley of arrows tried to snipe him just as he touched down, but by the time they arrived, he’d already rebounded away.

“[Hollow King], my offer still stands. If you stop what you’re doing, I promise I’ll do all I can to help you find a back to the man you were.”

“Your word means nothing to me!” The [Hollow King]’s ferocity redoubled. It loosed a flurry of attacks, lashing out with its claws, beating its wings, and chasing from Percival from cable to cable, all the while shouting “Hypocrite! Cannibal! LIAR!”

One strike in particular caused the [Hollow King] to overextend. Both its claws raked forward to grasp at the fleeing monk, but rather than step away, Percival ducked and came in close to sweep the [Hollow King]’s legs out from under it.

The [Hollow King] began to fall, but it quickly rearranged the bones and muscles in one of its feet in order to grasp onto the wire and swing back up to a standing position.

Given the rhythm of the battle, the [Hollow King] expected to receive an immediate counterstrike, so it righted itself while guarding its head with its claws and its body with its wings — but no return blow came.

It back-stepped to create space and lowered its claws to gain sight of its opponent, but SMACK! As soon as it stopped guarding its head, Percival’s wooden spoon crashed into its temple.

Percival attempted to press his advantage with several follow up strikes, but they were all deflected.

Eventually, the two of them separated. They each alighted on a different cable and took a moment to stare each other down, even if only one of them had any eyes to do the staring.

“Perhaps it was selfish of me to again waste time offering you a chance at redemption, but I had to try. I know there is only one form of mercy a monster like you can be made to receive, but I’d hoped to be wrong.” Percival took a ready stance with his spoon. “Prepare to be put down, [Hollow King].”

“And I had hoped you would have the decorum to bow your head,” retorted the [Hollow King], taking a stance of its own. “As is stated in the Law, those heads which do not bow, shall roll.”

The two leapt at each other, and so began the next phase of a battle whose legend would resound throughout history for ages… but not for a reason either of them could’ve possibly predicted.

----------------------------------------

Gregory leapt back into the air as another [Solar Cannon]’s shot exploded below him, tearing up the ground and incinerating the [Solar Guards] who’d been surrounding him but a moment before.

He tried to rise back up to the wires overhead and join Percival in fending off the [Hollow King], but Viktor and that godsdamned mount of his were once more there to bar his path.

“Let! Me! PASS!” Gregory screamed, rearing back with his greatsword. He struck, but the [Steward of Pain]’s griffin dodged the blow by a hairsbreadth, perfectly spacing Gregory’s attack.

Before the former [Champion of Sol] could react, the griffin used its superior aerial mobility to dive back in and close the distance. The beast’s foretalon slashed into Gregory’s side with enough force to rend, and working with uncanny synchronicity, its rider used the maneuver’s momentum to tear into one of Gregory’s wings with the barbed end of his whip.

Gregory finally managed to bring his blade into position to defend, but with another coordinated strike, Viktor and his griffin sent Gregory hurtling back toward the ground.

He crashed into a regiment of halberd-wielding guardsmen, and one of the soldiers managed to — perhaps by chance — brace himself and align his weapon such that he impaled Gregory through the gut. The soldier had little time to celebrate, however, because the blow only bled off a fraction of the falling [Liege]’s momentum, and Gregory landed directly atop the soldier with enough force to turn the guardsman into a spray of gore.

Gregory’s newest injuries threatened to send him into shock — his pain’s intensity likely magnified by Viktor’s abilities as a [Steward of Pain] — but Gregory was a veteran of a thousand battles, and he knew that to hesitate was to die.

It took Gregory but a heartbeat to regain his feet and slash in a wide arc, fending off a trio of guardsmen who’d been about to capitalize on his apparent vulnerability. He prepared another sweeping attack to clear more space, but he felt prickle at the back of his neck.

He leapt, beat his wings, and dove over the soldiers surrounding him. The maneuver left him open to several glancing blows and jabs, but he knew he’d made the right choice when the ground he’d been standing on a moment earlier exploded in a destructive burst of light. The guardsmen who’d been surrounding him a moment earlier became nothing more than an unpleasant stench on the breeze.

Volleys of arrows and [Solar Cannon] shots came at him ceaselessly, but now that he had his bearings, Gregory was able dodge or deflect the majority of attacks sent his way. It still took a majority of his focus to do so, but the battle soon stabilized into a game of cat-and-mouse — or to be more accurate, a game of griffin-and-cat played in a field of weapon-wielding mice.

He irregularly alternated between maneuvering along the ground and low flight, but wherever he went within the square, the projectiles followed. It got to the point that enemy soldiers began dodging out his way whenever he approached for fear of being caught by friendly fire. Viktor and his griffin continued to circle overhead, ever ready to again prevent Gregory from intervening in the battle between Percival and the [Hollow King].

After a few minutes of this when Gregory felt that [Dying Breath] was nearly done stabilizing his wounds with gold, he took a moment to reassess the battle.

Except for the [Hollow King] and the [Sunlit Archers] who were splitting their fire, every enemy in the area was focused solely on Gregory.

Logically speaking, this was good news. From the brief glances Gregory stole of their high-wire battle, he knew Percival had the [Hollow King] well in hand, freeing the [Nameless Vanguard] to destroy the overhead cables with near impunity. At the rate everything was progressing, the ritual would be disrupted, and the night would be won.

So why was Gregory feeling so frustrated?

He didn’t know why, but he knew he had to get to Percival’s side. Now.

In an attempt to get out from under the circling [Steward of Pain], Gregory leapt from the facade of one building straight into the side of another, using it as an anchor to quickly shift his momentum and leap onto the roof of a third.

From there, he bounced around the perimeter buildings of Kingsblood Square several more times, attempting to leverage his superior grounded mobility to gain a straight shot toward the ongoing duel up above. Viktor, however, was simply too adept at aerial screening. No matter how quickly Gregory moved, the crimson-armored man was always within range to intercept him should he attempt to rejoin Percival’s side.

Though Gregory could undoubtedly defeat Viktor in single combat, he wouldn’t be able to do so quickly. If Gregory wanted to get to Percival’s side quickly, he needed to outmaneuver the [Steward of Pain].

Faster. I need to be faster.

Gregory was already burning through his stamina at a dangerous rate, but he picked up the pace even further. He could feel [Dying Breath] exacting its toll on him, the veins of gold spreading and thickening throughout his body at an alarming rate. Even if he avoided every blow from here on out, he would die before fifteen minutes passed.

As for why he was trying so desperately to get to Percival’s side, he simply needed to. A year ago, he promised the man that he would be his [Kingmaker]. Even though they’d both be dead before dawn and that promise would have to be left unfulfilled, Gregory couldn’t bear the thought of the young man dying without him by his side.

Over the course of his long life, Gregory had let too many people down. Percival wouldn’t become another.

Gregory knew that he should be preserving his strength in order to distract Viktor and the rest of the enemy forces for as long as he could, but his pain at the thought of remaining below while Percival fought above was simply too much for him to—

Gregory stopped.

Pain, he realized.

He calmed his breathing and took stock of himself. He was riddled with minor injuries, he had a hole in his thigh from where Victor had pierced him with a lance, he had another hole in his gut, two of his six seraphic wings were mangled beyond recognition, and what remained of his flesh was nearly half made of gold.

“I’ve been acting a fool,” Gregory admitted. “You’re a more cunning opponent than I anticipated.” Another set of [Solar Cannon] shots flew towards him and Gregory leapt out of the way, but this time rather than zip a quarter-way around the square, he only jumped onto the next building’s roof, doing his best to conserve energy. “I hadn’t expected a [Class] named [Steward of Pain] to work so subtly.”

A volley of arrows came his way, and Gregory dodged by swaying in place. One arrow flew right by the bridge of his nose, but it was able to come so close only because he’d allowed it to. Dodging further away would have been a waste of energy.

“Amplifying my emotional pain so that I’d act recklessly? Truly an inspired stratagem, but I must apologize that such tricks won’t work on me any longer.”

“Too much talk,” Viktor intoned without a hint of emotion, his voice low and rumbling like that of an [Ur-Bear]. “Cannons and archers, hold. Knights and guardsmen, clear a circle. Titans, to me.”

The enemy troops moved at once, hastily yet cleanly clearing an area right in front of the Torr Royale’s main doors. Viktor guided his mount to land in the center of the circle as it formed. He held out his mace to point at Gregory.

“Come. Fight me.” As the [Steward of Pain] spoke, the circle finished forming, a twenty-foot-diameter ring of [Solar Guards] pointing their halberds inward. The twenty [Solar Knights] were spread along the perimeter of the circle at regular intervals, and the two [Luminous Titans] planted themselves on either side of their equally stoic commanding officer.

Gregory couldn’t see the other man’s face, but his movements were so even and calm that Gregory couldn’t help but imagine a faceless visage — no different from the [Hollow King]’s — hiding beneath the crimson visor of the other man’s helm.

“Your reputation does you injustice, Viktor,” Gregory said, ignoring the other man’s challenge and staying perched atop a roof. “You comport yourself with much more calm than I would expect from a man holding a [Class] titled [Steward of Pain].”

“You are stalling.”

“I suppose am,” Gregory admitted shamelessly, “but enough of that.” He lowered his stance and raised his blade. “I see now that you’re too dangerous to leave alive, Viktor. I apologize, but I’ll need to kill you before I rejoin Percival’s side. Let us fight.”

With a great flap of his remaining wings, Gregory flashed forward.

The [Luminous Titan] to Viktor’s right stepped forward to intercept Gregory’s charge, but its movements — as powerful as they were — were far too clumsy to keep up with the former [Champion of Sol].

It punched the ground where it expected Gregory to land, blasting apart the ancient cobblestones with the sheer force of its blow, but Gregory had used his wings to slow himself just enough to land a mere six inches out of the Titan’s range. His lead foot touched down just as the ground beneath it was blown into the air. Without missing a beat, he transferred the erupting earth’s momentum into a rising slash that split the Titan’s arm clean at the elbow.

He prepared a follow-up strike, but rolled out of the way as the other Titan kicked out at him. Viktor and his griffin followed up immediately with both a mace and a talon strike, but Gregory carried the momentum of his roll into a heavy sweep of his blade that parried both blows and cut a deep gash into the griffin’s side.

The griffin let out a pealing cry of pain. Both of the Titans attempted to crush Gregory with their thunderous fists, but Gregory again managed to retreat just out of range. Viktor managed a light crack his barbed whip across Gregory’s back, but Gregory barely felt the blow so it must not have penetrated his armor.

And so the real battle commenced, and Gregory was unstoppable.

He was a virtuoso of the battlefield. Even outnumbered, he landed two to three devastating blows for every minor wound he received in return. He dodged and redirected blows by the slimmest of margins, leveraging his vast wealth of experience to always remain at a positional advantage despite being surrounded. Every step he took, every sweep of his blade, every minute shift in his momentum served multiple purposes for both attack and defense.

He leveraged both [Dying Breath] and [Arms of the Seraphic Host] to their fullest. Both spells passively boosted his speed and strength, but he also intermittently drew on the former to perform otherwise impossible maneuvers at the cost of burning away more of his life. As for the latter spell, the enchantment surrounding his blade [Redemption] allowed it to bite through the enemy golems’ metal-and-stone flesh with ease, and the strength of his ethereal plate armor allowed him to ignore minor blows such the cracks of Viktor’s barbed whip.

Viktor was still able to use his [Class]’s abilities to sporadically amplify the physical pain of Gregory’s many injuries in an attempt to distract him during key moments, but the former [Champion]’s discipline proved mightier than his instinct, and Gregory managed to muscle through every sudden spike in agony with little more than a wince.

After but a minutes of exchanges, Gregory felled the first of Viktor’s two [Luminous Titans] by stabbing it though its core. The second one — already missing both its arms — tried kicking Gregory from behind before the man could remove his embedded blade, but Gregory anticipated the blow. For an instant, Gregory’s limbs glowed gold. With preternatural speed, he removed his blade from the inert golem’s chest and took a single step forward, away from the kicking Titan.

The Titan’s kick hit nothing but air, but before it could plant its foot down to ready another kick, Gregory kicked backwards with his own foot, launching the Titan’s lead foot out from under it and causing it to pitch forward and fall. Then, as nonchalantly as a person might brush off a speck of dust from their coat, Gregory turned around and relieved the [Tier V] [Luminous Titan] of its head.

Viktor and his griffin again charged forward and tried to strike Gregory down with in a flurry of steel and talons. All they managed to land was another light whip-crack against the back of his leg, but the blow didn’t affect him through his armor. Even with his amplified sensitivity to pain, Gregory found it easy to ignore the light smack.

Gregory tried to close the distance to press his advantage, but a cable strewn with metal and glass ornaments fell between him and Viktor, forcing them both to step away.

Unsuccessful with their attacks thus far, Viktor and his griffin used the opportunity to fully retreat to the edge of the circle so that they could stand beside their soldiers. Now that his [Luminous Titans] were down, Gregory half expected the man to command his infantry to charge, but he didn’t. Instead, he spoke.

“You are already dead,” intoned the [Steward of Pain].

Gregory raised an eyebrow. He glanced at the fallen pieces of Titan strewn around him, and then back to Viktor. “I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m not dead quite yet. If you wish to kill me, you’ll need to put in the effort.”

“You have already lost.”

“Have I?” Gregory asked. As if on cue, a pulse of unstable divinity swept through the square, originating from the Torr Royale and spreading outward, shaking the ground and stirring the air as it passed. “Whatever ritual that [Tyrant] hopes to complete is already on the verge of collapse,” Gregory continued. “My side has already won.”

“You have already failed.”

Gregory narrowed his eyes. Viktor seemed keen on keeping him talking, but why? Delaying their battle only worked to Gregory’s advantage.

“Now you’re stalling,” Gregory accused.

“I would have preferred you take longer to notice.”

Not bothering to elaborate, Viktor reared back with his smooth-bodied whip. He was nowhere near close enough to hit Gregory with an attack, but something about the weapon still sent alarm bells ringing though Gregory’s mind.

Wait, wasn’t his whip barbed?

CRACK!

SPLERTCH!

Viktor cracked his whip into the air, and dozens of spikes erupted from Gregory’s chest, stomach, and legs, but he didn’t feel a thing. His blood splattered all around him, most of it turning gold before it even struck the floor. The damage was so sever that [Arms of the Seraphic Host] was shattered and dispelled. Gregory remained standing, but only because every one of his major joints were skewered in place. He kept a white-knuckle grip on [Redemption] through it all.

“Gaugh-cugh-kkkkgh—”

Gregory tried to speak, but all that escaped his lips was blood and a choked rasp. With both his heart and his lungs torn to shreds, it took all his will to hang onto consciousness.

He tried pulling harder on [Dying Breath] to quickly heal his injuries, but the spikes embedded all over his body interfered. They sucked up the spell’s healing magic, using it to each grow a quarter inch thicker before Gregory stopped drawing on the spell.

It seemed no individual spike could absorb enough magic to have negated the healing effect on their own, but since dozens of them had appeared simultaneously throughout his body, they were more than enough to prevent Gregory from healing himself. But how had they all suddenly in the first place?

The barbs, he realized, remembering all those ‘ineffective’ whip cracks Viktor had landed on his back. He whipped me to stick me with the barbs, and then he transformed the barbs into these spikes. But why didn’t I notice earlier? I should have been able to feel…

Gregory’s eyes widened. Nearly every wound on his body flared with agony, but when he focused on the wounds caused by the spikes, he felt nothing.

He looked up at Viktor, and Viktor… Viktor chuckled. The stoic man actually chuckled. It was an odd sound, a disquieting thing somewhere between a rumble and a scratch that made Gregory’s mind itch.

“At last, you understand?” he asked, a perverted glee in his voice. His left arm — the one he’d used to crack his whip — hung limp, bleeding, and useless at his side, but his grip on the weapon’s handle remained firm.

Another wave of unstable divinity thundered through the square, but Viktor was too busy reveling in Gregory’s suffering to notice.

“Cannons, on my mark!” Viktor called, and Gregory felt the invisible weight of loaded artillery pieces training their sights onto him.

Viktor holstered his mace and raised his good arm high into the air, ready to give the order.

“I’ve always wanted to kill a [Hero],” Viktor said conversationally, “but I can settle for you.”

Percival, I’ve failed you, Gregory thought.

Viktor’s hand chopped through the air, and Gregory closed his eyes.

Thanatos, old friend, I’m sorry that I couldn’t set things right.

“FIRE!”

----------------------------------------

Another set of explosions rang out far below, but Percival couldn’t spare the attention to investigate.

Dodging arrows, using the cables anchored around the Torr Royale to rapidly alter his momentum through three-dimensional space, keeping track of the [Hollow King]’s position and remaining out of the way of that impossibly fast divinity-catapult-charge thing it’d hit him with earlier, severing as many cables as he could between exchanges, guiding his duel away from the members of the [Nameless Vanguard] still severing cables of their own — Percival balanced these and a dozen other concerns all at once, stretching his cognitive abilities to their limit, but he didn’t feel overwhelmed in the least.

If anything, the task of balancing a dozen concerns all at once reminded him of his time as a monk, and strangely enough, it made him happy.

Giant wooden spoon in hand, Percival deflected a series of claw swipes from the [Hollow King]. He maintained his footing as he backpedaled along the cable bouncing underfoot, but at the end of his opponent’s combination, he was left ostensibly off-balance with his lead foot too high in the air.

The [Hollow King] attempted to capitalize on the opening, backhanding Percival’s weapon aside with one claw while lunging forward to deliver a knife-hand stab with its other, but an instant before its lunging foot could plant, Percival stomped his own lead foot onto the cable and slid off to the side.

The cable snapped back up right into the [Hollow King]’s foot, trampolining the monster up and away from Percival. Percival slashed the cable with his spoon as he fell, severing it. A volley of arrows closed in on him, but with a kick off of another cable, Percival dodged and landed on a third, ready to receive the [Hollow King] next attack.

It was obvious the [Hollow King] expected Percival to eventually slip up, but this cycle had already been going on for several minutes. Defend, counter, destroy, dodge, retreat, reposition, repeat. The individual steps didn’t each always happen, nor did they always happen in that particular order, but over and over again Percival and the [Hollow King] cycled through the same set of interactions as they battled their way through the air.

Even without a face, it was clear the [Hollow King] was growing more and more frustrated with each passing minute and each severed cable.

“You’re too predictable,” Percival goaded.

“Silence!” The [Hollow King] loosed a flurry of claw strikes, but Percival managed to block or dodge them all before creating more space.

“You’ve stolen your victims’ spirits, but you lack their heart. You’re a beast mimicking its betters, and nothing more.”

“SILENCE!” The [Hollow King] demanded once more. Enraged, it charged.

“High slash left,” Percival said just as the [Hollow King] launched its first attack, a high raking slash with its left claw. Percival redirected the blow with his spoon, and he kept talking without missing a beat.

“Low slash right,” he said, and just as he predicted, the [Hollow King]’s defected blow flowed seamlessly into another low slash with its right hand.

“Center left stab. Low spin trip. High chop. Feint and elbow right. Quick left, right slash. Low lunge left. Double slash up.” Percival narrated each and every blow before it came, defending them all with contemptuous ease. He dodged the [Hollow King]’s final double slash by leaning back just out of range, but rather than allow his opponent to continue attacking, Percival fell into a back handspring. He crossbarred his giant wooden spoon against the cable and kicked up with both his feet, slamming his heels into the [Hollow King]’s chest to send it flying backwards and away.

As the [Hollow King] regained its bearings, Percival flipped from his handspring back onto his feet. He held his weapon at the ready, his back to the Torr Royale, and continued taunting his opponent.

“Predictable. Desperate. Pathetic. You can steal from other as much as you like, but that’ll never make you whole. You are destruction and decay. You’re a hammer in a world of glass. You’re miserable, and you’ll always be miserable because you lack the one fundamental ability of humankind — the ability to create anything new.”

“I! Demand! SILENCE!” The [Hollow King] screeched in a dozen over lapping voices, and Percival was struck by how similar its cry sounded to the wails of the Voxwraith. The skin at the front of the [Hollow King]’s head stretched and spasmed to the point of tearing, and pockets of roiling flesh began appearing all over its body, forcing it to pause its assault to regain control over itself.

Percival smiled bitterly, pity in his eyes. “To be Human is to share. To be Human is to give. So long as you do naught but take, you’ll never be fulfilled,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “You are no [King]. You’re not even a [Tyrant]. You’re barely a monster. You’re a squirming, wretched parasite trying to fill the void in its own existence, and unless you change course now, this is all you’ll ever be. Empty… Insatiable…” Percival stared at the creature in front him and infused his next word with all the authority he could muster. He spoke just as his opponent regained control over its form. His final condemnation rang through the air like a bullet, an immutable declaration of Truth. “[Hollow].”

“AAAAAAAGHHH!”

Just as Percival predicted it would, the [Hollow King] used its wire-latching charge to catapult itself directly at Percival.

It moved impossibly fast, but since Percival was able to predict the charge, he was able to react.

“[Hyperlight Burst]!”

The spell exploded into existence, imbuing Percival with the speed to dodge, but that wasn’t all the casting accomplished.

[Hyperlight Burst] was a spell that could inherently affect multiple targets with a single cast, so in addition to himself, Percival also bestowed explosive speed onto… the [Hollow King].

Managing the trajectory of its divinity-anchored charge must’ve taken all of the [Hollow King]’s concentration even under normal circumstances. With its already wild speed nearly doubled, Percival’s opponent immediately lost all semblance of control. Percival threw himself out of the way, and the [Hollow King] rocketed past like a meteor, tumbling ass-over-teakettle straight into the Torr Royale.

CRASH!

The [Hollow King] smashed through the tower’s wall, and the resulting shockwave rippled out with enough force to make Percival feel like someone was rolling a log across his body. Rubble exploded out in every direction. Dozens of cables snapped or fell away as the stones they were anchored to were pulverized into dust and debris. The sound of the impact spread throughout the city, deafening and indomitable.

The divinity being pulled into the tower — already turbulent — became utterly chaotic. Whorls of divinity slammed into nearby buildings and ricocheted about at random, becoming an uncontrollable storm of power to all who could observe it. Even those who couldn’t precisely sense divinity were thrown about within their own skin, feeling as if their very beings were being pulled and stretched into a dozen different and ever-changing directions. The infrequent pulses of divinity that leaked from the [Hollow King]’s ritual became a torrent all its own as the vast reserves of divinity it had gathered up until then were let loose, fueling the pandemonium like a broken dam fueled a flood.

We’ve won.

The thought struck Percival’s mind like a bolt from the heavens. He, Gregory, and the [Nameless Vanguard] would still inevitably perish due to the effects of [Dying Breath] — Percival could feel veins of gold in every part of his body — and with them would die every fallen soldier tied to their soul, but that didn’t change the fact that they’d won.

The [Hollow King]’s ritual was doomed to fail, and the fallout of its failure wasn’t even that bad. Turbulent flows of divinity that made people want to vomit? Down-right tame compared to the earth-shattering explosion he and Gregory feared might happen in the worst-case scenario.

As soon as whatever had been storing the divinity in the Torr Royale was bled dry, whatever minuscule chance the [Hollow King] had of quickly restarting its ritual would be quashed… but in the meantime, Percival still had work to do.

He gripped the haft of his giant wooden spoon tighter, and he steeled his gaze, hardening his heart for what he’d have to do next.

Time to put down a rabid dog, he thought. Not just for the world’s sake, but for its own as well.

Percival summoned a pair of wings and flew toward the building, covering his mouth as he entered an opaque cloud of atomized granite. He spread his awareness out as best he could within his immediate area, but the skill was difficult to use in even the best of circumstances. With the overpowering levels of ambient divinity and mana running rampant through the air, it was nearly impossible.

Changing tactics, Percival beat his wings to clear the air. The area’s visibility immediately improved as much of the dust was forced away from the building.

Having just broadcasted his position, Percival readied his weapon to receive an attack… but none came.

The visibility continued to improve as the dust thinned, and soon Percival found himself flying outside a hole blasted into the side of the tower. He flew forward and landed within the tower itself, his boots crunching as he alighted on the floor. He looked around, and based off of the amount of shattered shards of reflective glass strewn about the room, he gathered that he was in a storage room for mirrors.

Percival briefly wondered why so many mirrors were stored so high up within the sacred Torr Royale, but he quickly pushed the thought from his mind. He spied a trail of blood leading out one of the room’s intact doors, and he hastened to follow. He was here for but a single task, and he hadn’t any time to waste.

The corridors beyond the mirror room were a confounding maze of twists and turns. Every stretch of grey-veined marble wall looked identical to every other, and every polished-iron door was equally spaced apart. He could hear the [Hollow King]’s labored breath and arhythmic footfalls coming from somewhere, but something about the building’s geometry made the sound come from every direction at once. There were complicated symbols inlaid into the floor of every intersection, but Percival had no idea how to read them. If not for the trail of blood on the floor, Percival would’ve gotten lost in moments.

He stalked through the floor’s twisting halls as quickly as he dared, wary of an ambush behind every corner, but even at his reduced pace it wasn’t long before he came across his quarry.

He rounded one last bend in the serpentine passageway, and there it was. The only part of the [Hollow King] that seemed wholly intact was the wooden crown upon its head. The right half of its body was shattered and limp. It’s one good foot was braced against the wall as it struggled to yank open one of the hall’s heavy iron doors, but it hadn’t the strength. Both its wings were gone, and its once pristine robe was now little more than tattered rags of alabaster white cloth. The cloth shimmered as all the creature’s blood that was soaking into it burned away before it could stain, but the size of the pool of blood at the creature’s feet suggested it’d been trying the door for nearly an entire minute.

Percival charged.

The [Hollow King] turned, startled by the sound. “Fool! If you kill me now, there’s no hope for—!”

PWAAASCH!

Percival smashed his spoon into the [Hollow King]’s head, blasting the creature straight through the hall’s iron door.

----------------------------------------

The stranger designs a training regime for Percival that is as straightforward as it is grueling. Every moment not spent sleeping or trekking through the ravine with a stale bit of hardtack softening in his mouth was spent wielding his makeshift mace, discussing tactics, or casting spells.

The Voxwraith’s venom and Percival’s own divinity continue mixing together. They become more and more inextricable with every passing breath, and Percival’s mind deteriorates. His thoughts are in perpetual disarray. Time loses all meaning.

His three days of training are the longest of his life.

His three days of training are the shortest of his life.

His three days of training all happen simultaneously, every moment occurring in tandem with every other.

His three days of training are isolated islands of experience, each and every second distinct, separate, and unrelated to each and every other, regardless of proximity.

Through it all, the only constant Percival can rely on is the sound of his own heart pumping blood through his ears. With every beat, it brings him closer to death, but each beat lets him know he’s still alive.

Ba-dum.

On the morning of the first day, Percival finally asks the question that’s been on his mind for a while now.

“Why are you helping me so much?” he asks. “I’ve done nothing to deserve it, and you don’t know me at all.”

The stranger looks at him funny. “What people deserve and what people get have less than nothing to do with each other. As for why I’m helping you, it’s because I’m here, and because I feel like it. Do I need any other reason?”

Ba-dum.

It is noon on the fourth day, and the blizzard’s white winds rage as furiously as ever.

Percival finally spots the Voxwraith. It looms high above him atop the end of the ravine, framed on either side by the mountains that stretch even higher. Half shrouded by the blustering storm, the creature is more terrifying than he remembers. Perhaps it is only a result of Percival’s own muddled perception, but the edges of the creature’s form seem to dance in and out of reality. Strewn all about its corpulent body are the myriad stolen faces of its past victims, all sneering at him, demanding his surrender, and each of their mouths drip with the same venom that now runs wild through Percival’s own heart.

Ba-dum.

It’s the first day again, but later in the afternoon.

Generously speaking, Percival and the stranger are ‘sparring,’ but it would be more accurate to say Percival is flailing around helplessly while the stranger does his best to provide instruction.

“Trust your body to know what to do on its own,” the stranger says, slapping aside one of Percival’s awkward attacks. “You have a high-tier class, so let it guide you.” The stranger sidesteps another blow. “I admit you’ll never be the best by relying on this method, but for now, you don’t need to be the best.” The stranger prods Percival’s foot with the butt of his scythe, causing the naked young man to lose his balance and tumble face-first into a pile of snow. “Competence will be more than enough.”

Percival extracts himself from the snow. Out of breath and frustrated at his own ineptitude, he is about to charge right back in, but the stranger stops him with a raised hand.

“Seek first to know thyself,” demands the stranger. “If you insist on hamstringing yourself, I might as well kill you now to save us both the trouble. Breathe. Reflect. Improve. Listen to your own body, and hear what it says.”

As the stranger demands, Percival pauses. He takes in a deep breathe, and for the first time that day, he looks inward.

He doesn’t like what he finds. He is weak. He is scatterbrained. He is inept. He is frustrated. He has never amounted to anything, and he never will. He will inevitably fail, and there’s nothing he can—

“Ask what must be done,” Percival whispers to himself, cutting off his own spiraling thoughts, “and find the strength to do it.”

Why those words came back to him at that exact moment, he isn’t sure, but he’s glad they did.

He takes another deep breathe. He reexamines his negative thoughts, acknowledges them, and finally lets them go, freeing them to drift away on the breeze.

His mind quiets, and in that quiet, Percival can finally hear his body speak.

His shoulders say they are too tense, and so Percival lets them relax. His feet tell him that they’re too far apart, and so Percival shifts them closer together. His grip on his makeshift mace whines like a petulant child, and so Percival rearranges his fingers, altering his grip until the child is comfortable and happy. His elbow he brings in. His knees he bends just right. His chest he stops clenching so tight, and the tension of his body melts away.

Percival opens his eyes. He is no longer a tightly wound ball of anxieties and stress. He stands as a warrior does, aware and at the ready.

The stranger smiles.

Ba-dum.

The Voxwraith shrieks in discordant chorus of a thousand different voices, but Percival pays it no mind. He sets his bag to the side and prepares to strike.

“[Hyperlight Leap].”

Stick in hand, Percival rockets out of the ravine and up into the storm, shooting straight for the aberration’s high perch. In his wake, the world is painted in streamers of sickly green and gold.

Where, when, or how he learned the spell, Percival has no idea, but neither does he care. He simply tells his divinity what he needs, and he trusts it to handle the rest.

Ba-dum.

It’s the third day again.

Percival and the stranger trek along the bottom of the ravine, and they are once more discussing strategy and tactics. The winds of the blizzard high above blow as harshly as ever.

Over the past three days of training, Percival has learned that the stranger has a thousand little sayings and pieces of advice, at least a dozen for every occasion. The sayings range from absurdly broad to agonizingly specific. Some seem to contradict each other, at least by Percival’s own reckoning, but the stranger insists that just means Percival doesn’t understand the words well enough.

“And so,” the stranger continues, “rather than take either path around the mountains, the vainglorious [Liege] commanded his army march directly through the [Valley Impenetrable], and remember, this is despite the fact that all previous invaders traversing that valley were ambushed and killed. What do you suppose happened next?”

Percival considers the question. The straps of his bag dig uncomfortably into the bare flesh of his shoulders, but he does his best to ignore the sensation as he formulates a response.

“He and his men… were ambushed and killed?” Percival asks. Based on what little he knows of the stranger, Percival knows his response will be deemed incorrect. His answer is too obvious to be right, but he can’t think of any other outcome.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” the stranger says, a knowing smile on his face. One hand rests leisurely on the back of his neck while the other spins his scythe. He strides nonchalantly atop the snow. His footfalls make not a sound, and he leaves nary a footprint behind. “But no, your [Liegeliness]. He does not die. He decisively crushes the opposition, and the war is won within the month.”

Percival cocks an eyebrow. His bare feet crunch loudly through the snow with every step. “How?” he asks.

“Consider for a second the opposing general’s perspective,” the stranger says. “A force roughly equal to yours approaches from beyond the mountains. You have the defender’s advantage, but your enemy might approach from any of three different directions, and you need to split your forces. If your enemy approaches through the valley, a mere quarter of your forces will be sufficient to obliterate them. If, however, your enemy takes either of the paths around the mountains, you’ll need at least half of your troops at each fortification to comfortably ensure victory. I’m sure you already see the problem.”

Percival nods. “As the defender, I don’t have a large enough army to guard every path. No matter how I split my forces, I won’t have enough to guarantee victory on every front.” For several minutes, Percival considers the conundrum, trying to create a solution. “Can I retreat to a different position? If I’m the defending [Liege], I must be familiar with the land. Is there a chokepoint where I don’t have to split my forces?”

“Retreat?” the stranger asks, feigning incredulity. “You can’t even guard the [Valley Impenetrable]? How incompetent can you be? If you can’t hold this position, one of your fellow [Lieges] will use the fact against you. You’ll never campaign again. Your troops will be redistributed to more capable leaders, and you’ll be a laughingstock for the rest of your life.”

Percival frowns. He hadn’t considered the politics of the situation, but what the stranger says makes sense.

“Point taken,” he says, “but what about just spreading out my troops to guard each position? Maybe a fifth at the valley, and then two-fifths at either side. Not enough to ensure victory, but it should still be doable. Or what about keeping my army’s elites at some central location, and then sending them out to the proper fortification after my scouts find out where the enemy’s headed? And since I’m in mountainous terrain, how feasible would it be to cause a landslide and collapse one or more of the paths?”

“Excellent questions, one and all! We’ll never know for sure, but I’d wager most of your ideas could even work.”

“…Which implies the actual defending [Liege] did something else.”

“Correct! And can you guess what that ‘something else’ was?”

Percival spends some time tossing the question around in his head. He considers everything he knows of the set-up and the outcome. A ridiculous idea enters his head, but it’s so absurd he can’t bring himself to believe it. He turns to regard the stranger, and the ancient man has a shit-eating grin on his face.

Percival deflates. “No…”

The stranger’s grin grows wider. “But yes~~~!”

“You mean to tell me that the defender left the [Valley Impenetrable] completely unguarded?”

“Exactly! He didn’t believe any opponent worth their boots would ever march through a thus-far unconquered death trap, so he decided not to ‘waste’ any troops defending it. The Vainglorious [Liege] was able to march right through the valley and attack each half of the defender’s forces from the rear — a classic defeat in detail!”

Percival scrunches his nose. He understands what the stranger is saying, but he finds the story utterly unsatisfying.

“What am I supposed to learn from this?” he asks. “‘Don’t leave an obvious weakness unguarded?’ ‘Be prepared for anything?’ ’Don’t forget that scouts exist?’”

“And so we come to the moral of this tale,” the stranger goes on. “Any wise coward can avoid an ambush, and any brave fool can fall to their opponent’s schemes… But to walk knowingly into a trap only to emerge victorious? There’s nothing more—!”

“So the lesson is to walk into every trap I come across?” Percival asks, interrupting with a shit-eating grin of his own.

The stranger stumbles and nearly trips. “What? No! Of course not. The lesson is that—”

“I should assume my enemy will do something stupid?”

“No!” The stranger stops walking and rounds on Percival. “The point of the story is that—!”

Ba-dum.

Percival lands before the Voxwraith, poised to attack.

Ba-dum.

It’s the third day for the first time.

“There’s no need to rush,” says the stranger as they spar. “A duel is a conversation. Attack, defend, parry, feint, deflect, counter, press, withdraw… they’re all but phrases in a conversation. And just as with any conversation…”

Percival sees the stranger position himself for a strike. Percival moves to block, but the strike doesn’t come immediately. When the momentum of his block meets no resistance, he is left out of position and vulnerable for a bare second, but that is more than enough time for the stranger. Effortlessly, his scythe meanders past Percival’s defenses, and the flat of its blade slaps him on the shoulder.

The stranger smiles. “…a dramatic pause can work wonders.”

Ba-dum.

Percival strikes. The Voxwraith screams.

Ba-dum.

On the second day — or is it the day before? The day after? — Percival encounters an interesting flower growing from a crack in the ravine’s wall. Time is of the essence, but he decides he can spare a minute to admire it.

Its petals are sharp, angular, and iridescent, shifting their hues depending on the angle Percival views them from, but after a few seconds of neck craning, he decides his favorite viewing angle is to look at the flower straight-on. At that angle, an odd pattern forms.

Five of its seven petals are equally spaced apart and radiate out from the central pistil in jagged waves. Traveling from the base to the tip, each of the five petals tells the story of a full day and night. Brilliant oranges and reds connect with magentas, deeper blues, and royal purples across a bridge of azure, and Percival can’t help but to for a moment lose himself in the little bloom’s tale of dawn and dusk.

The other two petals are… strange. They lie directly opposite each other, but they aren’t spaced evenly with the other five. It’s almost as if they were jammed onto the flower and glued in place… as if they don’t belong on the flower at all. They’re colored mostly green — an odd color for flower petals — but they also have one great circle of white on each of their centers. Squinting his eyes, Percival thinks the two circles almost resemble a pair of spectacles.

Ba-dum.

The battle is anticlimactic.

Before the Voxwraith can even react, Percival’s ironwood mace crashes into the monster’s center of mass, obliterating it utterly. Percival’s mace shatters with the force of the impact, and the monster is slain in a single blow.

Ba-dum.

It’s the third day for the last time.

The sun sets on the eve of Percival’s battle with the Voxwraith. Just as Percival prepares to rest for the night, the stranger speaks.

“I believe it’s time for me to tell you I’ve been lying,” he says, his tone uncharacteristically somber. “You can kill the Voxwraith, and it won’t even be close. You were capable of killing it before our first day of training was over, but I never told you.”

“Ah. Okay.”

“…”

A moment of silence passes between the two. It’s clear that the stranger is waiting for Percival to go on, but Percival feels no need to elaborate. For some reason, the revelation that he can easily slay tomorrow’s foe feels like a forgone conclusion. It’s a strange feeling, but to Percival, it’s almost as if the deed is already done.

“‘…Okay?’” The stranger repeats, incredulous. “Just… ‘okay?’ You’re not going to ask why I lied?”

“You already told me why,” Percival says, cracking a grin. “It’s because you’re here, and because you felt like it. Do you need any other reason?”

The stranger opens his mouth to respond, then closes it. He does this twice more before he eventually shakes his head, cracks a grin of his own, and bursts into laughter.

In the morning, he is gone.

Ba-dum.

The Voxwraith is dead.

Chunks of its corpse are scattered everywhere. Its ichor — a rancid smelling substance with a consistency somewhere between mucus and oil — is splattered about in every direction, dyeing the snow in patches of that same sickly green-gold of Percival’s tainted divinity.

The creature’s thousand stolen faces all begin to wriggle and writhe, bubbling away from their respective bits of ruptured flesh in a series of burbling eruptions.

Percival tenses, for a moment thinking that perhaps the fight isn’t over, but no new violence comes his way.

Instead of attacking, each of the thousand faces drift upward, and they change.

Percival watches, utterly transfixed, as the grey faces gain limbs and color and morph into full-bodied spirits of dance. They spin and twirl in a panoply of riotous and ever-shifting hues, spiraling ever higher and higher. Wheresoever they pass, the storm makes way. The blizzard’s blinding white winds retreat in every direction, and soon Percival is in the eye of the largest tornado he’s ever seen.

He feels no fear.

Without the wind directly in his ears, Percival finally hears them, the voices of the rising spirits. They no longer wail as they had when caged. They laugh, and they cheer, and they sing, and they hoot and they holler for all the world to hear. And finally, with one last jubilant cry of joy, they complete their journey skyward and meld into the sky itself.

Perhaps by coincidence, the newly revealed Sun chooses that moment to again disappear behind an opaque cloud, and all that is left to illuminate the heavens are the thousand-thousand ribbons of omnicolored light.

Individually, each band of light is insignificant, but together they shine brighter than the Sun ever could.

The blizzard’s winds still howl as harshly as ever, but Percival doesn’t hear a thing. For him, the world is silent, for he is lost in his admiration of the spirits’ heavenly display.

“Beautiful…” he whispers.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Percival turns to the now-familiar voice. The stranger is standing amidst the smoking and shriveled detritus of the thing that’d once been the Voxwraith. He bends down to retrieve an object from among the bits of the thing’s corpse. He straightens, and in one hand he holds—

“A mask?” Percival asks.

“Eyes up,” the stranger commands. “This might be our only chance to see such a sight.”

Following his own advice, the stranger has already turned his gaze skyward, and Percival follows suit. The ever-shifting lights continue to dance overhead, and naught but the whistle of the winds is there to distract them.

Entranced by the splendor, neither moves a muscle except to breathe, and they stand there, just like that, for the briefest of forevers.

For the first time in too long, Percival knows peace.

As Percival watches, his mind slowly gains clarity. Now that the Voxwraith is dead, Percival’s divinity is slowly eliminating its poison from his heart, but it is a gradual process. Lost in the beauty before him, he still finds it hard to believe the last few days haven’t been a dream. Perhaps in an hour his head might clear enough to figure out where lies the line between hallucination and reality, but for now, he is simply content to revel in the phantasmagoria.

A dozen minutes pass, and only once the lights begin to fade does Percival break the silence. “You were watching me the whole time,” he says.

“I was,” the stranger admits.

Both of their gazes are still set on the sky.

“Would you have let it kill me? If I were weaker, if it were a more even fight and it seemed like I might lose, would you let me die?”

“Of course.”

High above, the ethereal lights continue to dim, and the Sun’s rays begin to peek out from behind the clouds.

“Good,” Percival says.

A moment passes. The winds grow louder as the world returns to normal. The final wisps of the freed spirits’ light refuse to die.

“The [Hollow King],” Percival says. “It’s trapped the Prince’s soul. Him and countless others.”

Percival hears the man beside him let out an amused puff of air.

“So what are you going to do about it, your [Liegeliness]?”

“Same as I’ve done here,” Percival says. “I’ll kill the monster, and set them all free.”

The resolve in his own voice surprises him, but he supposes it shouldn’t. He is no longer that meek monk who’d spent each days with his eyes locked to the floor. Now, he has the courage to look up. Now, he is a leader. Now, he is a [Liege].

Together, he and the stranger share one last moment of silence, and despite the brevity of their acquaintance, their silence is an easy one, the knowing quiet of lifelong friends who’ve only just met.

The last colored lights put themselves to rest. The Sun breaks through the clouds. The tornado of winds remain, but it begins to grow turbulent, threatening to lose its shape.

“I never thought I’d get to witness the namesake of the [Aurorae Sylvas], but I’m glad that I have,” says the stranger. Percival turns to regard the man, and he’s holding out the mask he’d picked up from the Voxwraith’s corpse. “Here, for you. Proof for your atonement.”

Percival finally gets a good look at the object in the stranger’s hand. It’s a gnarled wooden mask with three crescent-shaped holes — a pair of weeping eyes and a downturned mouth. The design is simple, but evocative. The mask is tragedy given form.

“No, stranger,” Percival says with a smile on his face. “You keep it.”

The stranger frowns. He looks like he wants to argue, but Percival raises a hand to stop his complaints.

Percival closes his eyes and takes a moment to see as Gregory had once taught him to see. His senses extend as far as his divinity can reach — which in his current state isn’t very far — but he keeps his vision imprecise so as to not lose himself as he had that first time.

Seeing what he expected to see, he cuts off his extended perception and opens his eyes. To him, it feels like no time has passed, but from the proximity of the encroaching winds, he knows at least half a minute must have come and gone.

“The local Fae are coming,” Percival says. “I doubt they missed what just happened with the sky, so the fact that they’ll find me here should be proof enough that I’ve done what I’ve done.”

Percival’s eyes meet the stranger’s orbs of solid blue-grey, flit down to the still-proffered mask in the man’s hand, and then rise once more to match his gaze. “I don’t need it.”

The stranger’s frown deepens. “It’s yours by right, and you don’t even know what it does. You have no idea what you’re giving away.”

“As some old fart once told me, ’To have certainty in all things is the task of fools and gods,’” Percival says, throwing one of the stranger’s aphorisms back at him. “‘To admit ignorance is the first step toward true knowledge.’ I’m perfectly happy not knowing what that mask does, and I freely give it to you.”

“That’s not what those words are supposed to mean, and you know it, you cheeky bastard!”

“Huh. What a coincidence. A cheeky bastard once said to me, ‘Twisted words oft’ prove more effective than a twisted knife,’” Percival replied.

“Wipe that smarmy grin off your face!” the stranger demands with mock outrage. A small grin crosses the man’s face, but it soon fades as he once more grows serious. “Please, just give this a tad more thought. Even if you don’t need it as evidence, a natural treasure such as this might prove invaluable. That Voxwraith must have been hundreds of years old, perhaps over a thousand. Naturally occurring magic items are rare enough, and to give away one left behind by a creature that old… you’d do well to reconsider.”

“I have,” Percival says rather glibly, “and my mind hasn’t changed. I want you to have it. If it makes you feel better, think of it as a thank-you present. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you, so please, just accept it.”

The stranger’s expression becomes complicated. “As I’ve said, I helped you for my own reasons, and I’ve reaped my own benefits. I never expected repayment, for none is required. Our accounts are balanced. If I accept this now, I’d be in your debt.”

Percival gives a slow nod. “Okay then. I see where you’re coming from. If you don’t want to be in my debt, I understand, but I also want you to understand that that’s not how I see it.”

“Then we are agreed.” The stranger tosses the mask to Percival, and he catches it on instinct. “May your conquests be many and your defeats be few.”

The stranger turns and walks away. The vortex of white winds encircling them, once distant, has closed in on all sides. The stranger steps toward it without a shred of fear.

For some reason, Percival is certain that if he allows the stranger to leave now, they’ll never see each other ever again.

“Stranger, wait!” he yells.

The stranger stops. A mere stride away from disappearing forever, he turns to regard Percival. Percival tosses him back the mask, and the stranger frowns as he catches it. Before he can speak, however, Percival continues.

“If you won’t accept a gift, then accept a request.” Percival breathes deep and releases it slowly. The winds howl ever louder. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’re real.”

The stranger cocks an eyebrow. “What?”

“This is embarrassing, but I have something to confess.”

“You’re naked, absolutely slathered in a monster’s rancid hemolymph, and it’s so cold out that your pecker’s tucked away ‘till spring.” The stranger smirks. “I fail to see how you can be more embarrassed than you are right now. Out with it. I’ll listen.”

Percival feels a smirk of his own reach his lips. He gives his head a light shake in order to organize his thoughts. “Since that thing bit me,” he says, nodding toward a clump of the Voxwraith’s withered flesh, “it’s been as if I’m walking through a dream. I can never quite tell what’s real and what’s not. Half the time, I think I’m still lying on the floor of the ravine, hallucinating at death’s door. The other half, I think I’m already dead. Even looking at you now, it feels like I’ll wake up any second and discover none of this was real.”

“And to remedy that, you want me to tell you that I’m real?” the stranger asks. “I fail to see how that could help. Whether I’m a dream or not, I’ll insist that I exist.”

“That’s the thing,” Percival says. “I don’t think you will. I think that you’ll tell me the truth no matter what, but I can’t explain why. Do you ever have that feeling in a dream where you just suddenly know something to be true, no questions asked? It’s like that. You’re going to tell me the truth, because there’s simply nothing else you could possibly do. Call me a fool, but I’m certain of it.”

As the blizzard’s opaque whirlwind cinches tighter and tighter around them, the two men stare at each other. The wind at his back threatens to blow Percival off his feet, so he steps closer to the stranger. The stranger, mask in hand, mirrors the movement and steps closer to Percival. In but a few steps, they meet at the center of the ever-shrinking eye of the storm.

They continue staring, their eyes separated by a mere handsbreath. The stranger’s are filled with curiosity and puzzlement. Percival knows his own to be calm, ready to accept whatever answer the stranger is willing to give.

Strangely enough, Percival has always in his mind’s eye imagined the stranger to be taller than him, but looking at him now, he realizes they’re the same height.

Percival smiles at the thought, and the stranger smiles right along with him.

“Very well then, your [Liegeliness],” says the stranger. “Allow me to do you one better. Allow me to share with you my name.”

The winds crescendo like never before, and they close in tight.

“I!”

Fwheuwph! Wings of night, reminiscent of a bat’s if not for the spikes, unfurl from the stranger’s back and snap taut.

“AM!”

A mad gleam enters the stranger’s eyes.

He takes in a breath to speak once more, but his next word never comes. The very moment he is about to speak his name, the eye of the storm collapses, and the winds fall upon them both.

The wrath of nature buffets Percival from all sides and throws him to the ground. He tries to raise his arms to guard his head, but he’s unsure if he succeeds. The world is a void of white, invisible beyond the bridge of his nose.

He’s about to scream for help, but as quickly as they came, the winds disappear.

Breathing heavily and shivering from the cold, Percival rises to his feet and shakes the snow from his hair.

The stranger is gone without a trace. The scattered pieces of the Voxwraith’s corpse are nowhere to be found, blown away beyond the horizon in every direction. Even the foul smelling gunk that’d clung to Percival’s body is gone, every crevice of his skin blasted clean by torrents of air. He flicks his fingers, and sparks of pure gold, untainted by green, flit through the air before quickly burning out.

Every sign of the stranger and the Voxwraith are gone completely, and Percival is left with naught but his memories to remember if they’d ever even existed.

Overhead, the clouds sew themselves shut. The sky is once more a demure overcast grey, but there is nary a storm in sight.

Percival breathes. A moment later, he looks around and chuckles.

“You never did answer my question, did you?”

No response.

“I asked if you’re real,” he calls out softly. “I gave you the mask, now you owe me an answer! Not going back on your word, are you?”

Again, there is no response.

Percival’s smile slowly fades.

“What am I going to tell your oldest friend?” he asks the air, a note of pleading in his voice. “For goodness’ sake, just tell me you weren’t all in my head!”

Percival closes his eyes and clenches his teeth.

Over the past year, he’s rarely heard Gregory speak of his time before Sol’s curse — some memories are just too painful, it would seem — yet whenever he did speak of those times, each and every one of his tales revolved around but one other person.

The one-sided rivalry that began at his former god’s behest…

The battle in the valley where it all turned around…

That stolen night spent making promises they could never keep…

Percival slaps his cheeks. He opens his eyes and glares defiantly at the sky.

“I didn’t ask for your name!” he seethes, voice barely above a whisper. “Like you said, I don’t need it! Figured it out for myself on day two.”

He scoops up a ball of snow and launches it heavenward. It sails farther than he expects, and he loses sight of it as it crests a nearby crag.

“Don’t you disappear, you coward!” he screams.

Again, there is no answer, but Percival can’t bring himself to believe that the stranger isn’t out there listening.

“Stop hiding! Come out! I know you’re there!”

In response to his call, several figures rise into view from behind the crag he is facing, and it takes all of Percival’s discipline not to let his surprise show on his face. He’d forgotten that the Fae were coming.

His next days and weeks pass by in a flurry of activity.

Percival is led to the [Aurorae Sylvas]’ main encampment. Scout Master — the man leading the Fae who’d found Percival after he’d killed the Voxwraith, the very same man who’d days earlier demanded Percival wander into the mountains naked, alone, and with tears of blood running down his face — now pleads Percival’s case on his behalf before the faction’s elders.

The next day it comes to light that one of the elders betrayed the Prince to the [Hollow King] for some political reasons, but the specifics go over Percival’s head. Something about the elder in question wanting an all-out war against Humanity and turning the pro-peace Prince into a pro-war martyr?

The day after, the encampment’s army begins its march toward Soleil, and word goes out to every other Fae encampment to join in the fight against the [Hollow King]. Within a few weeks’ time, Percival is reunited with Gregory and his troops outside the walls of Soleil, and the entirety of the [Aurorae Sylvas] and the [Nameless Revolt]’s forces stand ready to depose the monster leading the [Solarian Courts]. They initially prepare for a drawn-out siege, but are forced to instead storm the city when it becomes clear the [Hollow King] is gathering titanic quantities of power to cast some sort of foul ritual.

The morning after he’s reunited with his troops — mere hours before their desperate final gambit — Percival finally finds a moment alone with Gregory. Atop a hill overlooking their mustering troops, he confides to his friend all that’d happened in the ravine, including details of the stranger whom up to that point he’d yet to mention to anyone else.

“And just as he was about to say his name, the winds collapsed. When I opened my eyes, he was gone, and besides my own memories, I couldn’t find a shred of evidence that he’d ever been there in the first place.”

Throughout Percival’s entire recounting, Gregory has remained stoic, but how the man reacts next, Percival could’ve never predicted.

Gregory chuckles, and Percival looks on in confusion. Gregory gets one glimpse of Percival’s bafflement, and his chuckles become chortles. He pauses, perhaps just now registering the sound of his own laughter, and then bursts into a fit of full-bodied cackles.

Percival rubs his eye and shakes himself, but nothing about the scene changes. It takes several long moments before the old man calms down enough to speak.

“Ha! Sounds exactly like something he’d do…”

“So you think he was really there? He wasn’t just a hallucination?”

Gregory lets out one last chuckle, but even after his laughter has died, a smile remains on his face. “Knowing him, I doubt the answer will be a simple yes or no. Perhaps both, or perhaps neither. I suspect it all depends on how we define the question. If you ask me, I say you saw what you saw, and that’s all there is to it.”

Such a blasé answer from the usually straightforward man stuns Percival into silence. He opens and closes his mouth several times, but he can’t think of a proper way to respond.

“I saw what I saw, and that’s all there is to it? He was real and he wasn’t? Gregory, none of that makes any sense.”

“You were dying, Percival. You were on death’s door. If you knock on a man’s door, don’t be surprised when he answers.” His own words again cause Gregory to burst into a small fit of laughter. “Look at me, an old man speaking in riddles! Makes me feel young again…”

Despite his mentor’s levity, Percival can’t find it in himself to relax. Chewing his lower lip nervously, Percival asks another question. “So you really think it was him?”

Gregory snorts, a toothy grin on his face. “You can say his name, Percival. I appreciate the consideration, but tiptoeing does us no good. I’m no delicate flower, and I’ve had millennia to grieve.”

“It… It still feels wrong to say aloud. It’s such a ridiculous thing to believe. It feels like as soon as I say it, I’ll feel like an idiot.”

“‘If you’re too scared of being wrong, you’ll never learn a thing.’ That’s something he used to say to me all the time,” Gregory says with a far-off look in his eyes. He turns his gaze back to Percival and speaks again. “Tell you what, we’ll both say his name on the count of three, and no one has to feel like an idiot. Are you ready?”

Percival considers the offer. “If it’s alright with you, I’d prefer to scream.”

“Haha! Sounds good to me.”

So as to not alarm his troops, Percival erects a golden barrier around the two of them to muffle sound, and then he nods. Gregory spends a moment admiring the barrier with curiosity, but then shrugs and nods back to Percival.

Percival takes a deep breath, and as he and Gregory begin their countdown, he remembers the stranger.

His skin bone-white.

His robe black as night.

The scythe held ever at-the-ready.

The earnest smile of a sage wise enough to remain a fool at heart.

Whether or not he was real, Percival doesn’t know, but neither does he think it matters.

The man is Thanatos.

The man is Death.

Percival screams until he’s light in the head and seeing stars, and it feels so godsdamned good.