Koa didn’t realise he had opened his eyes for several moments, for all the darkness was still there.
Memories of the latter half of that conflict were fuzzy, but he vividly remembered outlasting Remus. That one final outbreak of light, when he was already on the brink of collapse, had ensured him nothing but a swift rest. Koa himself had been thoroughly exhausted, firing out wooden projectile after projectile. But it hadn’t been enough. In reality, his significance to the outcome of that battle was minimal at best, and none existent at worst. He knew the thought wouldn’t assist them one bit, but Koa couldn’t help but deliberate on how Ash would have fared in that encounter. Far greater than himself, he feared.
And now they were here, wherever here was, with the distinct sensation of manacles encircling Koa’s wrists.
“Remus.” He whispered, hoping to get the man’s attention.
A drowsy voice replied, as if Remus had only just awoken from his slumber. “Yeh? Where are we?”
“Those Shadow Clansmen took us somewhere. We’re chained down. Do you think you can burn off our restraints?”
Remus let out a subdued scoff, but a scoff nonetheless. “I can try, if you want me to put up a firework display. But I have a hunch Joshua and his men didn’t leave an oversight as big as flammable chains in our midst.”
The two retired into a tense silence as they overheard movement. Footsteps from some direction, Koa couldn’t tell which, approached, each as haunting as the snapping of a whip. A spacious chamber must have surrounded them, for every snap echoed in persistent drags of noise. Then a great thunderous cracking sound reverberated across the cool expanse, and Koa realised they really did have a whip, ready to beat them down at any moment. The notion to activate his Mark occurred to him, but something told Koa that for now at least, that wouldn’t be the best idea.
“Who told you to speak?” Joshua spoke. His voice was frustratingly plain. “Besides, you both should feel honoured. It's not often that a criminal gets to meet the Old One, or anyone at that rate.”
“Criminals?” Remus’ voice was drowning with indignation. Personally, Koa was more concerned with that second bit.
“The Old One? You mean your God-Gr-”
A wave of dark energy, riotous and more abrupt than anything, sent them both crashing back. The chains grew taut. Only then did Koa sense their material: Supreme Steel. For some reason, only upon discovering that frightening reality, did the real gravity of the situation hit Koa. And it was threatening to crush him.
Almost as much as the next presence that arrived.
It was like walking out into the sunniest day of the year, after spending several decades dedicated to the hermit lifestyle. Koa’s eyes didn’t water, but goosebumps swept across his tender skin.
A bored voice, the most ancient Koa had ever heard with its gravelly inflection, and it was like the room itself was speaking to him. “A long endeavour indeed to gather these two, and I’m still dubious on whether they're really worth an execution of this magnitude.”
“For Donovan’s memory, we must take every measure.” Joshua replied flatly. Koa almost didn’t catch it, but he could’ve sworn they muttered something with a tone verging on sadness. Something about honour and blood.
“I suppose.” Koa shivered, as he sensed an impossibly old presence settle its gaze on him. It reminded him, vaguely, of the aura of a god. If this was their sect leader . . . how the Shadow Clan wasn’t a global superpower on Descent, Koa was left unaware.
Remus, on the other hand, was more spiteful than impressed. “You have no right. Wait until our clans hear about this. Not Juniper, Andreas, nor Brison will take this sitting down.”
For one moment so tight with tension it could burst, no one said a word. Then, in a sound too eerie to be true, the Old One laughed. Koa thought that was ample material to fuel his nightmares for the next several years, and then the God-Graced did something Koa couldn’t process at first.
Light. Koa’s eyes swelled, and he had to blink several times as a hovering sphere threatened to blind him. The sudden contrast gave him visual whiplash, and, judging from Remus’ silhouette swiftly putting up a palm, he was just as affected. His mind raced, all sorts of deadly techniques ready to erase their own existence spinning through his mind. It reminded him immediately of the all-devouring voids of the Greed Clan, or a miniature star produced by a promising member of the Star Sect. Only when the sphere blinked, did Koa truly comprehend the sight before him.
It was an eye. A massive, watching, hovering eyeball that observed everything with a sort of rapt hunger.
“Do you know how long I have wandered across this earth?” The Old One questioned, each word carrying lethal severity. There was an underlying mockery hidden there, one that made Koa feel like the biggest idiot in the world. “I have outlived some of your eldest ancestors. I witnessed the first Unbounded, Enos, raging war from the ether with his agents of Infinity. I watched the seed of humanity sprout into the ferocious boroughs of civilization you now call home. And I will continue to do so until my god claims their rightful hold on all of Infinity. And you have the nerve, the naivety, to believe your petty sect leaders will bother to challenge me? Their own gods will be fleeting ash under my sandal by the time the thought will ever cross their minds.”
Koa braced empathetically for Remus, as the outraged eye settled solely on the ginger man. “And you. None of your secrets are safe from me. None. I know all about your companion from the Chaos Clan. That disease will be dealt with soon enough, I assure you.”
He felt his heart drop. How? No God-Graced or Godling, to Koa’s knowledge at least, had been able to unravel the Unbounded mystery of the Chaos Clan without Remus or Violet plainly admitting it. The Old One was no doubt efficient in Perpetual Sight — anyone with that many years to them would be — but the scale of his skill was unprecedented. Scary, even. Was there anything the mass of shadow didn’t know?
Koa could only see Remus’ side profile from the slight glow the eyeball emitted, but he was sure the man was scowling.
A second later, an extra source of light appeared, with Remus at its centre. Shadow Clansmen, now revealed in the azure illumination, all wielded their blades. But Remus, average Emblazed or not, evidently wasn’t fazed. “If you’re so wise, you should have sensed the Projection.”
Without eyelids, it should have been impossible, but nothing inhibited the Old One’s only visible eye from widening. Then its pupil flashed a sickly shade of crimson, and Koa knew they were really in trouble.
The entire space rattled, and Koa felt last night’s dinner working its way up his oesophagus. A tiny orb slipped away from Remus, dissolving as they spoke, and despite the overwhelming vertigo, Koa savoured a rush of dopamine at its sight. The Projection! He didn’t know how much help Violet could be against the Old One, but any assistance, belated or not, could be just the push they needed to tip the scales in their favour.
Then a blast of Infinity rushed out of the Old One. Koa fully-expected a laser to cleave through his heart. Instead, its trajectory was aimed at the orb itself, but for a more malicious purpose than simple destruction. Remus appeared to notice this before Koa, for, tugging against his unrelenting chains, his snarled in a fair impression of demonic cave drawings.
The Old One’s tone was one of smug delight. The Projection ceased to crumble from the might of Remus’ quick burning, weakened as he was from their kidnapping. It settled, its continued existence ensured by the laser’s suffusing Infinity. It was like the Old One was supplying a wilting flower with all the nutrients it needed to continue living.
“Imbeciles.” The God-Graced must have been on the verge of cackling. For a sect leader so hung up on emotional suppression, he had seemed to forgo repressing his own. “You might as well have handed me a map to your Unbounded associate. I’ll kill her myself through the gateway you so kindly supplied.”
It was then that Koa understood. All this time, Remus had been their voice of reason, albeit a terribly angry one. Now, Koa felt his own teeth grate. “For a man so wise, you really are so twisted up in your ways. Violet is helping to defend against the Unbounded. She assisted in killing a Right-bearer! Do you need it spelled out any clearer?”
“Truly an advanced doppelganger, to have convinced you so.”
They wouldn’t listen. There was no reasoning with someone like the Old One. Someone who had grown so comfortable in their ways, so at one with their ideologies, be them false or true.
Koa was still drained from last night, but he let his own Mark activate in a burst of neon emerald. The Infinity on him was but a drab, but Koa couldn’t expect much more when his Vision from Chantal had been mere Durations ago. During the early days of his travels with Remus. Nevertheless, he hoped it would be enough. He raised his head, binded his Mark’s energy and Infinity into one pinpointed mass, and spat.
A tiny shard of wood flew out, and his aim proved true.
Even through the overflow of the God-Graced’s own Infinity, the Projection was crushed. Maybe if the sect leader had been focused on destruction, things wouldn’t have gone so well. Though Koa accepted his good fortune without complaint. The clump of wood spun within the spotlight of divine essence, before crushing the Projection to dust. All heads turned to the spot of its death, as if they were waiting for something lethal. Something like a supernova erupting through the room. But, rather anti-climatically, there was nothing. At once, both Koa and Remus realised that simply crushing a Projection wouldn’t magically transport Violet over here. For all they knew, she could have been preoccupied halfway across the world.
Now that the dust had cleared, a group of frowning clansmen all settled their gazes on Koa. Shadowy apparitions formed by all of them, like dark reflections of the soul.
There was another rumble, and the disembodied eye was nowhere to be seen. The only light was from all of their Marks, forebodingly lit. It did not share the comfy warmth of a burning candle, or a raging fireplace amongst the ferocity of winter. It was more closely reminiscent of the match that started a funeral pyre.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Time seemed to kickstart once more, and he and Remus acted in tandem. Wooden fortifications erupted before Koa, and Remus, two furious eyes amid a robe of flame, became the deadly explosion they had all been awaiting. The streak of blue had crawled across Koa’s own chains through some sort of intervening anchor. But Supreme Steel, whilst not indestructible, would have to blaze away for days at this rate before eroding enough to escape.
It would be unnecessary to say they did not have days. Minutes were looking unlikely.
In brighter news, the Old One had appeared to have vanished. Obviously, he saw no reason for lingering here, when the odds were stacked so overwhelmingly against them. But Koa couldn’t die yet. He had to at least survive to reach that date. Yes, at least until that day.
His barricades were shredded like paper mache, dark spinning blades coming for his face next. Koa dodged one as best he could, flung a clumsily summoned clump of wood to redirect another, and met twenty more with a blank face. If not for Remus’ abrupt wall of flames, Koa would have been punctured in more places than one. There was no avoiding the next attack, however.
Three shadowy fists hammered into his chest, stomach, and temple. Koa was thrown back, but the chains kept him in close proximity like the ring of a boxing match. Oak armour donned his body, but the pummeling blows cracked the hasty material in seconds. Koa’s Mark burned, a sizzling sensation warning him to drop his rampant energy consumption.
As he dished out a volley of wooden spears, about as effective as watering a flood, he couldn’t afford to relax. Remus was a spot of blue in his left eye, burning with such ferocity, most of the attacks dissolved before reaching him. The chains ricocheted with tremulous motions, the result of Remus’ Eruptive Will technique. Yet even low-grade explosives would have trouble with Supreme Steel of this quality, much less what an exhausted Remus could produce.
Blood dripped down Koa’s brow. His attacks grew more sluggish, like the wild wallops of a drunkard. The darkness itself, all around, became its own confining enemy, squeezing his flesh with the resolve to make him burst. His breaths were shallow. Koa’s flesh prickled. His lacerated sides had been screaming in their own private agonies, but had since fallen numb.
Remus collapsed in a sea of sweat. He shook upwards on one knee, hateful venom in his grimace. Strands of fire appeared and disappeared as he fought to keep his Mark active. Koa’s horrified gaze was torn away, five meaty fingers of pure midnight grasping him. He tried to breathe; tried to inhale, but his lungs . . .
Thoughts raced through Koa’s delirious mind. Images of Elmore’s death, his cousin’s bleeding body soaking the cavern floor as the Pet-Keeper tore him to grisly shreds. Donovan’s head had exploded, in a more gory sight than he could comprehend, and the image appeared to be a fixture in his blurring vision. Splinters of wood struck into a giant, enclosing fist. It loosened. Loosened for all the time it took to catch a breath, before he felt his guts continue to compress. Koa’s own wooden splinters chafed into him. The world was spinning. The world-
Something broke. Koa couldn’t tell if it was himself or something external, but the sound of fissures spreading through rock, or perhaps bone cracking, alarmed him beyond compare. The sound continued, the pressure changed, either loosening or tightening, he didn’t have the sense of mind to tell. His Mark was fully gutted out, the Infinity in his measly Bank non-existent.
Noise. Noise that was definitely external. Koa felt his body fall. Shrieks and howls filled the air, yelps of contempt pervading through it all in violent exclamations. For a few seconds, he simply laid there, hoping his own damage wasn’t too terrible. Something tugged him up. Koa didn't fight back, prioritising his breathing as his vision finally settled.
Behind, there was the district sound of chains snapping. But something more significant was occurring ahead.
At last, sight clearing, his eyes focused on one vital image through the gloom.
Violet, seated upon a Snow Wolf Unbounded. The wolf itself was the most powerful Koa had ever seen of the variety, its musculature bulging even though the white fur. Golden highlights streaked down its flesh, and all around . . .
All around, an army of similar Unbounded awaited her command. To the side, a light breeze
filtered in through a scar in the wall, the unfamiliar buildings of Eclipse, a city he hardly knew, dazzling to his fatigued gaze. Drifts of cloud in a milky blue backdrop dominated much of the outside, extravagant towers bounding upwards amongst them.
The Unboundeds' eyes, purple with a sort of swirling entrancement, were all the indication Koa needed to know they were under Violet’s control.
Some distance away, Remus struggled to a stand. He himself had suffered quite the beating, requiring the support of his own Unbounded helper. Remus’ entire body lurched with every breath, but an exhausted smile crept across his lips. “Took your time.”
Violet laughed triumphantly, arms crossed. “Honestly though,” she rivalled his beam, “how many times am I going to have to save you both from the brink of death?”
Koa stuffed his face into the pelt of the Unbounded, and altogether stopped thinking.
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Violet didn’t have much time to converse. Breaking those chains through some adept Infinity manipulation had been draining, and cracking open that wall had been challenging enough all on its own. After ordering her personal ride to break the back of the nearest enemy in sight, she dived into the fray.
Two armed clansmen rushed towards her, the others preoccupied by the pack of Snow Wolves she’d taken executive control over for this little manoeuvre. In unison, blurring fists and a sword of shadow rushed in a race to bludgeon her first.
They struck empty air.
Violet reappeared from behind in a splurge of reality-warping purple. She concentrated Infinity into both fists, and struck out. One hit the back of the attacking man’s head as planned, while the other trespassed through a forged violet rift. She felt it brush out of another crack in space right ahead of the other man’s face. Before he could react, she felt the cartilage in his nose crack. The pair of them went flying in opposite directions.
From behind, Violet sensed a creeping shadow lash out for her. Once again, she was gone in a flash.
More shadows encircled her immediately from where she reappeared, but she didn’t pay the amassing crowd much attention. This was a rescue mission, not a glorified beatdown.
Remus was at her side, eyelids drooping like he was to fall unconscious any second now.
“I’m getting you out of here.” She promised at a volume she hoped he could hear, tapping his shoulder. Immediately, Infinity filtered from her own current supply into his channels. It wasn’t much, and a splurge of sudden Infinity was sure to upset any fledgling Bank. Nevertheless, after a series of groggy mutters, he appeared fully alert. If her assumptions proved correct, the divine essence should accelerate his recovery.
“Thank you for coming.” His voice sounded strained; probably due to a multitude of punches directed at the throat.
“Thank me when we’re out of this place. I have some interesting developments to discuss.”
Violet had originally planned for her Snow Wolves to rush Koa and Remus out of here without trouble. Meanwhile, she would exert some of the Infinity she’d been storing to distract their captors. But there were more clansmen than she had been anticipating based on her initial energy readings — a lot more.
And that giant hole she’d busted through the wall was rapidly being filled. Taken up by a creation of Shadow energy on a scale that made Donovan’s lumbering titan look miniscule.
“That’s Joshua.” Remus said, a little more clearly. At her frown, he explained: “one of the clansmen who dragged Koa and I here.”
Remus got to a stand, forgoing the support of his Snow Wolf. With a bold activation of his Mark, he swept his hand forward and sent a group of assailants scattering.
Fire and explosions. Violet reflected. She grasped Remus and teleported him to a safer stretch of the battlefield. Koa’s unconscious body was being upholstered, and defended, by a thick concentration of her furry friends.
Settling for a moment so as not to burn through her energy, Violet scanned through the darkness. The previous impenetrable blackness had lightened in the wake of so many activated Marks, and the glow of the eyes of Violet's controlled fiends. Nevertheless, the chamber was still gigantic. Violet couldn’t see far enough to spot another wall other than the one she had imploded. And, by the growling sounds unleashed by Joshua’s shadow, Violet supposed that wouldn’t be a possible exit.
At once she came to a decision. “Stay close,” she instructed Remus, and a sphere of magenta erupted around them all.
Three separate times, Violet dragged Remus, Koa, and the Snow Wolf that supported him, through space. Only on the fourth time did she spot a hallway up ahead. Two Shadow Clansmen guards awaited them there, a man and a woman. Upon coming face to face with a lashing of fire from Remus, they fled for just long enough for them to dive through.
It was still dark down there, almost pitch, but the subtle light they all exuded, and the occasional torch guided their passage.
Racing down random tunnels at the whims of her split-decision making, Violet had no way to know if they were making progress. Nevertheless, away from that chamber of death seemed to be the best direction there was.
Broken chains still hung limply at the end of Koa and Remus’ hands. “Nice bracelet,” she muttered to the pair of them.
Koa was still fast asleep, and Remus didn’t seem to appreciate her humour. “Ha ha, very funny. Now how do I get these off?”
“That’s highly concentrated Supreme Steel, it’ll take me time to break the full thing.”
“How am I supposed to fight with these things weighing me down and flopping everywhere?”
“I don’t know,” they entered another chamber in a blast of purple, “use it as a lasso or something.”
Violet almost hesitated at this new room, and they both fell silent sensing the power emanating from it. It gave off Infinity density matching that of a top-tier Unbounded. Yet, in a seeming contradiction, they sensed no movement. No sound, or anything else inconspicuous either, for that matter. After a second of indecision, she approached closer.
At one sight of the interior of an adjacent chamber, she had to cover her mouth with a hand.
The walls, ceiling, and floor of the place were all supported by incredibly concentrated sheets of Supreme Steel. Nearby, the corpses of great Unbounded dispersed with a slowness that must have been manufactured, through some sort of method she couldn’t identify. At the centre, a meditating clanswoman channelled all the excess Infinity inwardly.
Creeping past, she saw several duplicate rooms showcasing much the same thing.
Remus looked astonished. “Think of how fast you could expand your Bank with that kind of set-up . . . but just imagine how expensive this would all be.”
Dashing further ahead, before those clansmen began to wonder what that riot of energy outside was, Violet sensed foreign, external energy detached from the workings of the Shadow Clan. That meant the outside, and their freedom, were close.
They reached a wall, which based on a few frantic knocks, led straight outdoors. Frantic footsteps were closing in on them. There wasn’t much time left to act.
She concentrated the final remnants of the power in her Mark, and focused on the brick wall. Within a few seconds, it appeared a few feet away, floating in the open air. All that was left was another convenient gap. When reality returned, and gravity took hold, the removed section promptly fell, brick by brick.
Fell and fell and fell through a cushion of cloud. Likely to erupt into smithereens once it made contact with the ground below.
Eclipse was an airborne city floating on clouds, much like the one in the Tempest Territory inside Hybrid. Only this was on a scale that surpassed all of that, consisting of floating islands linked together by great stretches of chain, held perpetually by a series of colossal statues. Their bronze had never weathered, the result of laborious Mark usage, and their carved faces each represented a respective god of the Empyrean Alliance. From outside, the Shadow Clan’s base wasn’t glamorous — a jet cube making up for its lack of creative ingenuity through sheer scale.
Violet prepared to finish off their grand escape with one more flash of purple, when an oozing darkness flooded through the tunnel.
Joshua’s shoulders and face protruded sideways from his shadow’s hall-filling mass. He looked them all dead in the eye, hovering blades appearing before him. “Leaving so soon?”