“Are you ready?” I asked Dom. The nearby rift was growing bigger with every second. I saw flashes of the corrupted world beyond becoming more and more stable. It would not be long before the portal was stabilized, and Envy’s Demonkin could pass through.

Dom clenched his jaw as he looked at the fluctuating space around the portal. “Not really, but I'm not going to get any more prepared standing here.”

I nodded, understanding his apprehension. Dom could absorb and redirect energy, but when a spatial rift formed, the energy generated was comparable to a volcanic eruption. Few people could withstand that kind of power for long. I couldn’t do it, and even with his talent, Dom was unlikely to last even a full minute before it became too much for him to bear. Luckily, I did not need long.

Taking a deep breath, I sensed the energy left in my body. It wasn’t much. Using the Chronicle was always exhausting. I would need more than this if we were going to manage this. I glanced down at all the undead I had created and reluctantly sighed.

“I finally got an army to play with, too,” I mumbled in annoyance before reaching out with my domain to connect with each of the newly risen soldiers and Demonkin. With a slight tug, the flames that gave them life flowed out of their bodies. The undead collapsed one by one, like puppets with their strings cut, as the fire was siphoned out of their bodies and back into mine.

It was not a perfect method of recuperating my strength. I would regain less than I spent to revive them, but it would hopefully be enough to complete what I needed to do.

“Alright, Dom, Let’s do this,” I shouted as green fire flowed into my body and back out, igniting with scorching heat.

Dom pounded his fists together. His gauntlets clanked loudly as they started to glow bright red. A smile spread across his face. “This is more like it! Been a long time since I had this much power rush through me.”

Despite standing in the air, Dom bent his legs and moved into a deep fighting stance. He pulled his fist back to his waist. The aura radiating from the man began to skyrocket as he absorbed the heat from my flames. It suddenly felt as if I was standing under a towering mountain. Even with my regained strength, it took significant effort for me to remain standing close to him.

To this day, I am still amazed at how well Dom’s talent synergized with mine. I could create heat and even explosions with my flames, but at its origin, my talent was not one designed for destruction. At its source, my talent was simply to raise the dead. When I tried to use it to burn my surroundings, it took far more energy than it would for someone like Cyra, whose fire existed solely to incinerate. It probably took me over ten times as much energy as it did for her to get the same effect. When I fought with Dom, though, that weakness was no more. He could absorb all the energy in my flames regardless of their original intent. Afterwards, he could redirect that force in its purest, most barbaric form.

Dom breathed in deep as the power in his body reached the peak he could maintain. The air shimmered and sizzled around the gauntlet on his right hand. It was glowing so hot at this point; it looked like the metal might melt.

With a sudden shout, Dom punched.

There was no sound at first. There was only pure light. Even Sebastion’s talent could not compare to the brilliance displayed by Dom’s fist. It was blinding, a majesty that could not be ignored.

Then it came. The deafening boom of a thousand lightning strikes roared out all at once.

Nearly thirty percent of my total strength had been condensed into a single point. Even a strong Demon like Abigor would not have been able to survive this blow. It was a trump card I usually saved for only the direst of circumstances. At this moment, Dom and I erupted with power comparable to a division commander's or Envy's strength. The only downside was that we couldn’t repeat it very many times. Even if I could get enough energy, Dom’s body could not handle repeated uses of the technique.

It was unfortunate the power was not aimed at the Demon himself. Instead, it clashed with the newly forming rift between realms. The tears in space were disrupted by the sudden influx of power, crashing into it. The turbulent area surrounding the rift calmed enough that we were now able to approach without being torn to pieces by random tears in space. The rift itself looked became unstable and looked like it might collapse if we could only hit it with another two or three blows just like this one.

Despite the minimal effect of our combined might on the rift, the shockwaves were felt across the battlefield. The sudden burst of power blew back humans and Demons alike. The intense fighting in the air was forced to a halt. Weaker Demonkin Alphas and unprepared human domain warriors threw-up mouthfuls of blood as the explosion rattled their internal organs. We were high enough up in the air that the people on the ground looked smaller than ants, but that distance did not stop the force of the explosion from knocking them to the ground. We were lucky my dad was maintaining his glyph armor across the army. Otherwise, many might have been injured or worse in this single moment. I could already imagine the complaints and reprimands we would get once this was all over.

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“Stay close to me. I will take the brunt of the spatial ripples while you close the rift.”

Dom spoke confidently as he flew forwards, but I noticed the strain in his voice. My gaze flickered to his right arm. Its muscles were spasming eccentrically as it hung limply at his side.

I was starkly reminded that Dom had spent the past few decades away from the war. A blow like that would not have debilitated his arm in the past, but it was clear he had let his training slip after retirement.

I frowned at the sight but decided not to comment on it. Dom had his own pride and I trusted he knew his limits better than I did. All I could do was close this rift quickly so that we could end this battle and let him recuperate.

Our strike had significantly weakened the rift but approaching was still dangerous. Ripples of energy radiated out in every direction like the endless waves of the ocean. Getting close while the connection between the realms was still forming was like repeatedly getting battered with a sledgehammer over and over again. Wayward cracks in space could be thinner than a hair and almost completely undetectable but would slice through even the toughest materials in existence without any resistance. Our attack had closed most of these tiny cracks, but a few were still scattered across the area. Worse of all, the radiation from the immense amount of chaotic energy spewing out of the rift was dangerous in an entirely different fashion. If we stayed close for too long, our bodies could mutate in unpredictable and gruesome ways. The two of us were strong and able to absorb a decent amount of chaotic energy without risk, but the volume generated by a forming rift was on a completely different level.

Dom stayed between the rift and me as we moved. He let his innate talent take the brunt of the rift’s dangers. For once, I was happy with my body’s small size. I stayed close to his back and was almost completely shielded from the worst of the rift. What little dangers that did seep through were negated by my tough physique without issue.

My Chronicle had already begun flipping through pages of its own accord as a myriad of voices once again rang out. The rift was dangerous, but I focused entirely on the black ink-like void next to it. The closer we got to it, the colder it became. It was as if all life was being sucked out of the area. Scarier, it was still expanding at an alarming rate. The void was already twice as big as the Demon that it had once fed off of, and within just the few seconds of our approach, it had doubled in size again.

I knew why. I was familiar enough with this talent to know its quirks. It was feeding off the energy radiating from the rift, and so long as it was supplied with that energy, it would continue to grow. If I left it alone, this black void had the potential to be more dangerous than the blood mist. At least in the blood mist, there was some form of life, as twisted as it was.

Within this dangerous situation, though, there was hope. Both the ever-growing void and the rapidly stabilizing rift were a threat, but the two of them were not compatible. Connections between realms did not radiate waves of chaotic energy as simply a side effect. The power was a requirement for the two realms to link together. Meanwhile, the void would devour any energy it came into contact with.

Knowing this, the solution to both problems was simple. All I had to do was send the inky void through the rift between the realms. The path between the realms would collapse, and if I were really lucky, part of the void would make it to where Envy was. Then he would have to deal with the resulting cataclysm it could create.

The book in my hand stopped moving as it finished flipping through its pages. The voices died down one after another until only a single one remained. Rage and grief dripped across every word, and for a moment, it felt as if the entire world was bathed in blood. Images of countless battlefields filled my mind. Corpses of people long forgotten amassed into mountains that pierced the clouds. Who they were fighting for, who they were fighting against, none of it mattered anymore. All that they represented was summarized in four simple words.

“Victory at any cost.”

As those words rang out, it felt as if the universe itself responded. Everything fell silent and still as if in mourning. I breathed out, and the wind moved with it. My hair fluttered, and the surviving grass on the ground moved with it. It was as if I had become one with the world itself.

At that moment, I felt a connection with everything around me more profound than anything I had experienced before. For the first time, I truly began to understand what Mare had done when she made me an Adept. The universe itself was at my fingertips. With a single thought, I could reach into the endless sea of colors that had, up until now, seemed utterly incomprehensible.

I felt a strong pull to lose myself in that feeling. It was almost irresistible, but right as I began to struggle with it internally, I felt the gaze of two purple eyes peering at me from the depths of the endless sea. I was shocked awake immediately and pushed that feeling to the back of my mind.

I could only maintain the Chronicle for a few seconds at a time. The talent it gave me would fade just as quickly. As much as I would have loved to engulf myself in this new connection with the world, I had to use these few seconds wisely. I was draining every last drop of energy in my body at a frightening rate. If anything went wrong now, I wouldn’t get a second chance.