Are you finding that the ley no longer bends to your will?

Cedric shuddered. His eyes widened in horror. Everything became thick and thin, dense and sparse…

Kogar…!

There was horrible blackness all around him. Nothing. The expanse of Cedric's own mind, his ensnarement by Serkukan, was utter purgatory.

He stumbled back and before him appeared Kogar, black and white, white and black. The deity sneered as he approached.

“What did you do?” Cedric asked, his hands becoming shuddering fists.

Kogar's eyes narrowed. “I reduced Calamon’s twice-ley to nothing. I burned a hole through Evra’s fucking barrier. I've stripped you of your power!”

Not all of my power. Cedric felt natural magic course through him.

Kogar chuckled. “Really? You're going to use that? I thought you a more worthy foe, Castelbre.”

“I can kill you, Kogar. I can kill you now. When Faunia returns—”

“So who will really be killing me? You, or that fierce bitch of yours? She's managed more damage against me than you ever have — but I'm not afraid of her. A god does not fear—”

“ENOUGH!” Cedric gripped tight his blade and stepped into a wide swing.

Kogar lifted his forearm — the blade broke against it. He countered with a fist that struck Cedric square in the jaw, knocked him to the invisible floor in throbbing pain. His jaw was fractured, split instantly. The pain throbbed and flowed, his whole face got hot. There was no healing magic to save him now — but his eyes yet narrowed up toward the two-tone bastard standing over him.

“You see, boy? It was a good attempt, coming after Hemah, coming after Tartys… but when you're outnumbered…”

“I'm not outnumbered…” Cedric murmured through the pain. “Copper is—”

“—Dead.”

He winced. “Tyverius is…”

“Who?”

Cedric pounded the ground. He tried to stand — Kogar stepped on his spine, pressed him to the floor.

“What do you think an apt punishment is for someone who disobeys a god? Should I flay your skin from your body? Chain you to a boulder and let vultures pick out your innards? Let crows eat your eyeballs? Oh, what am I to do with you?”

Kogar released his foot, sneered and grinned wildly at Cedric. The boy was only just beginning to pick himself up, still shaking with pain, and fear, and anger…

“No. I should kill you now. You don't deserve more than that — why risk it all for you?”

Kogar threw a heavy fist — Cedric stumbled back, and—

VSSSSSSHHHHHHH!

An indescribable sound, a fierce vibration rattled their ears. Kogar's fist had caught in midair, blocked by a platinum, iridescent field… a shield. Dyosius!

Kogar lurched back. His armor suddenly looked heavy, his neck had become strained and tense, the veins bulging through the thick skin.

“You… you fucks!”

Faunia used Dyosius! She created a new ley barrier! I can feel it, she figured out how to—

Kogar threw a ramming fist again, howled against the weight of his armor.

Cedric lunged for the barrier at the same second, gripped all of the invisible leylines and tugged them forward with him. “HAUUUUUGH!”

VSSSH-THOOOOOM!

The sound ramped up into an explosion, threw Kogar hurtling back, rolled him thrice over the black, invisible floor.

And then he could no longer stand.

Cedric approached, breathless. The pain in his jaw began to subside. He said to the unmoving Kogar, “So that's it! Your Etherians… they're not fused to your body. They're devices!”

“Fuck you…” Kogar hissed with hatred in his eyes.

“You're no better than Jirtu — you're hardly even immortal.”

“FUCK YOU!” he screamed. “She would have hated me if I'd fused myself to these fucking things! Tools, Etherians are nothing more than tools!”

Cedric exhaled. “On that, we agree.”

His Sylvet blade came again to his hand. The world was beginning to reforge, the flames, the destruction… the rubble pooled up on either side of them, all across the cobbles at his feet.

“But it hardly matters now—”

Kogar screamed out, pulled the ley tight into an onslaught of silent attacks. Sweat immediately grew thick over Cedric's skin as he breathlessly fought off every single horrible gesture. His lungs constricted and burned. Every muscle in his body began to burn.

And then, just as it ended, Kogar warped away. His body rolled unto itself, closed up into a black hole which sent him safely to Etheria.

Cedric lowered his blade.

And he was back. There was Kyrrith just ahead, along the same cobbled street where he'd fought Ivalié… There was the place where those rebels had blown a hole in the side of it, where smoke still poured out…

And there were the flames which encased the other half of the city. The smoke. The rubble. The dead.

Cedric fell to his knees. It was all he could do to let out a tragic cry, a scream of horrible defeat — a scream of torment, and wallowing sorrow, and pain.

Serkukan cackled. Always, Serkukan cackled. He was just as much that obsidian horror as he was crimson rage. He was just as much Algirak…

Something stirred behind him. He darted back, called flames to both of his hands.

There was Tiana. She faltered, flinched at his move. In her thick accent, she asked, “What happened here…!?”

Cedric saw her leg and his heart sank further.

Black flesh. A dark shadow. That sickly, evil presence. Her leg — her shadowy Etherian which had refused to name itself… it was Algirak!

He slammed his hands together and screamed. A searing spear of flame shot at her, impaled her right through the chest. The black energy tried fruitlessly to catch it — and she was dead.

He wept out again. He howled and wailed and cried into the wind.

“...There you are.”

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He opened his tear-streaked eyes again. Tartys was approaching from some thirty paces away. A giant blue eye had grown large upon his forehead, bulged like a glistening gemstone.

It's not over… It never ends…!

Cedric dragged himself to his feet, still slobbering and bawling like a child.

“You've done quite a number here. How many thousands have you just killed just to kill me? And yet here I am, unscathed. Humanity is so intriguing; must always the cost of peace be paid with genocide?”

Cedric pulled on the ley. Tartys lifted a foot almost curiously, like he'd stepped on something, then pressed it down as if stomping on the ley itself. Cedric felt his muscles tense and burn, fell limp, dropped his palms to the ground. He gasped and drooled.

“So, what now? Kogar wants me to kill you — I suppose I step in where he failed?”

Twenty paces.

Ten paces.

Five paces.

Tartys extended his grasping hand.

“TARTYS!”

Tartys paused. He turned around, a surprising reluctance in his gesture. “Faunia Vleren. Kogar warned me about you.”

“Faunia!” barked Cedric, “Faunia, run!”

They stared at each other — Faunia through her open-mouth teal helm, swirling with blood. Tartys through a gaze which screamed disinterest. His third eye darted back and forth, back and forth…

“FAUNIA!” Cedric screamed again, beat the ground. “Don't do it! Don't let him kill you!”

“I'm not planning on it,” she said.

Tartys lunged like an owl for its prey.

The platinum barrier exploded from her palm where they should have met — her defective ability acted instantly in reaction to his presence.

“Hemah is a little bit of everything,” said Faunia, “she's sunlight, but that helm injected her with their voices… And then she destroyed the Omnestatum for Algirak.”

Three more blows she deflected, speaking all the while.

“Algirak took the whole… she got the crumbs.”

His fist came extra close — she ducked back, unleashed the barrier around his forearm. Blood sprayed from him, and off came the arm.

Tartys finally winced as he danced back.

“But you are the opposite. You're nothing. Not even Antithesis — you're literally… a void. You're the power which Kogar has been struggling to achieve for so long."

Tartys slid backward.

Cedric finally came to his knees again. She's… she's doing it! Maybe there'll be an opportunity… Just… just maybe!

Hunters had begun to gather in a circle around the three of them. None dared enter the fight. There were still screams in the distance, flames still roared all over the great city.

And then Cedric realized — the sky was back. The blackness had vanished from the world, and not because of the fire. The stars were lit up in beautiful sparkles all across the void beyond.

“Faunia… she really did revive the ley barrier…!”

She said, “You can disrupt the ley just by touching it. You can unravel men, you can obliterate everything.”

Tartys went to clap — but he had no offhand. He smiled. “Bravo. Kogar wasn't wrong to warn me of you. So, now what? You'll kill me? After you failed to kill Hemah?”

“I'm wondering about that. Maybe you'd be better made into a device. Maybe you'd be better off as a tool.”

“Well, let's be honest: you haven't quite seen all there is to me.”

Faunia didn't move. The ground began to quake beneath them.

“FAUNIA! FAUNIA!” Cedric continued to scream.

“I'm glad you restored the sky, Faunia Vleren. Or this next part would really take you by surprise.”

Tartys’ great eye, the giant blue bulb that once floated over the Petalfall… grew into place over the horizon. It must have matched the planet in size by its appearance, so massive, so… incomprehensably huge…!

Cedric gripped his head. Tendrils seemed to stretch out from the thing in every direction, it seemed to dart back and forth, back and forth, taking in everything. It was omnipotent, it was inconceivable… It was the end itself.

Tartys himself had begun to unravel: the top of his head was flayed paper, empty inside. The vessel, the pawn was once again being thrown away to nothing.

“It's impressive in size, Tartys, I'm sure all men of the realm envy it.”

…She's joking with him…?

“But it's… bland. Unimaginative.”

He shrugged. “I suppose Etherians are not blessed with human imagination, I apologize if you're disappointed. Did you know that the forms of Etherians are usually designed by their owners? They only chose the form of dragons eons ago because they found them appealing.”

“I suppose I'm just curious as to what it does.”

Tartys continued to unravel as they spoke, as the eye seemed to grow larger, more terrifying by the minute. He said, “You'll find out. Are you going to let me complete it?”

“Yes.”

No… no, kill him now!

Cedric tried desperately to grab the ley but could not accumulate the lines. He planted his forehead to the floor.

And the world began to shudder. The eye began to change hue from blue to red. The black pupil flared yellow like an explosion, covered the world in burning color.

Faunia still hadn't moved.

Cedric launched from the ground, screamed out as he charged Tartys with all of his strength.

But Tartys unraveled completely into nothing. He was gone, replaced wholly by that giant eye... And for what would come next, Cedric had no idea.

Is it... over? Is this it? All of Calamon, maybe all of Caloria, wiped out in the blink of... He snorted, sniveled, croaked, ...in the blink of that giant eye?

He looked at Faunia. She was statuesque, perfect and unmoving. Uncaring. Cold. Icy.

Cedric collapsed again to his knees. We failed! Faunia, we…!

He imagined, for just a moment, a world in which he hadn't lost his confidence in Serkukan — in himself. Would they be standing together in suits of shining armor, facing off against the impossible? Would they be the true Etherian Knights from ages past, would Dyosius guide them in the finale of this fight?

But it was a moot point. Serkukan wasn't going to cooperate anymore. He would gladly let them all—

THOOOOOOOOOM!

A spear of ice broke the sound barrier, knocked Cedric to the ground with the storm of wind that chased after it. Faunia hadn't moved, yet she had launched it. She had launched… something.

“What was that…?” he asked — and then Faunia collapsed.

Cedric struggled to his feet, stumbled a weak sprint to her side. Her ice armor had dissipated, the blood from the armor had pooled around her, all over her.

He fell atop her unbreathing torso, threw a glowing red hand over her and absorbed the blood, wished and willed her to come back. The amber light from the eye began to fade. Tartys was…

Come back! Don't give out on me now, Faunia! I can't do this without you! I never could, come back!

Faunia's eyes opened to the sea of stars above. She hissed in a surprised breath.

“...Faunia!” he cried, the glow from his own hand faded and left them in blackness.

She blinked once, then twice. Her eyes shifted over to him.

Cedric grabbed her hand tight, held it the same way Ithlo’vatis had.

Faunia's eyes filled with tears at the familiar gesture. “Cedric, I…”

“Shhhh!” he hissed, “We're okay, all of us! We did it, Tartys is… Tartys is dead! I don't know how you did it, but…”

“I had to make a trade.”

He froze. He blinked.

“I had to trade him… I had to trade… Ithlo’vatis.”

“Ithlo is…?”

Faunia's head turned toward the flaming city, illuminated yellow and orange beneath the dark night sky, still echoing with shouts of Hunters and soldiers and mercenaries responding to the incident. “Calamity is over,” she said. “In Calamon, Calamity is over.”

Cedric buried his heavy head into her chest, held her tight. “But the cost…”

“How many… How many died here?”

Cedric bit his lip. “I don't… I don't know. This whole thing was a mistake. This whole thing, I've failed at every step… I never had a chance, I never…”

But his words grew distant as her thin fingers gently caressed his dirty hair. It was her turn to shush him, her turn to console him.

And as the crowd continued to grow around the epicenter of the tragedy, he just held her tighter. And he accepted her calm consolation.