“How weird is it being back here?” Asked Benny as he slumped down next to me on the couch. “I still remember us coming here together after you got your powers. It was so huge and imposing, a whole new world. Now it seems almost pathetic compared to some of the places we’ve been.” He put a hand on my shoulder, spiritual calming flooding into me and slowly repairing my soul.

“I feel that.” I chuckled. “They finish searching the area?”

He sighed. “Looks like the WCP is completely empty. Do you think we were wrong about the trap? I was expecting to face some hard resistance when we left the office.”

“I assume it’s the opposite, honestly.” I grimaced. “In all the other cities we hit, the Palace district was always flooded with Wendigos. Their absence here is pretty suspicious. We JUST blew up the Heart, so there shouldn’t have been time to withdraw. Which means they left this place empty to herd us to another location.”

He smirked at me. “Or they’re afraid to run into you underground or inside a building. Maybe they’re surrounding Valen, figuring they can deprive you of your biggest weapon by fighting outside.”

I glared at my best friend. “First of all, fuck you. I’m not some kind of anti building armament. I HAPPEN to have collapsed a few places in the course of our resistance. It’s not like that’s my signature move.”

“Oh, but you are.” He said maliciously. “Oh, but it is. Did you think all that stat income came in a vacuum? Stories abound, my friend, and they all paint you as the patron saint of blowing up buildings. On the upside, I’m pretty sure your techniques will get more effective at destroying large scale structures, on the downside I don’t think you’re going to have an easy time getting insurance going forward.”

I rolled my eyes, perking up when my I saw my sister approaching. “Hey Chels.” I said cheerfully. “How is Nat? And Valk? Everything ok? I saw you giving him and Cicero a once over with your purifying flame.”

“Cicero is in bad shape.” She grimaced. “Valk has a strong will and resisted being invaded by the cold. Cicero was tempted. He still held out, but it got in too deep for me to purge. You’ll need to work on him. I was able to soften it up a bit though. Purifying flame vs. corrupting ice gave me a natural advantage.”

“Unsurprising.” I shrugged. “Cicero never struck me as strong of will. I’ll work on him. Not now obviously, we have shit to do, but when I get a chance. How about you? Feeling ok? We’re going to be leaning on you a bit harder during this part. You get any inspiration from watching us blow up the corpse of an ancient demon?”

My sister chuckled. “I had a few.” She said with a grin. “I’ve been doing some research since you told me mom gave permission to use both my abilities.” Holding up a hand, she focused on her palm, and a symbol slowly manifest. A black and white circle, a dot of each color the only relief in an otherwise bisected shape.

I raised a brow. “I’m not familiar with that. What is it exactly?”

“It’s called a yin-yang diagram.” She said excitedly. “It’s a shape heavily invested in the blending of opposing forces. The implication is that all things are made of both dark and light, while each also contains a bit of the other. I’ve had some success stabilizing my energy when mixing it in this shape, long enough that I can actually use it as a projectile.”

“That’s fascinating.” I said with interest. “Are you going to use it as your Path? It seems like a strong image.”

She waggled her other hand. “Yes and no. I think I’m going to try to merge the concept with the idea of a star. It’s kind of a family tradition, and there’s a lot of powerful applications of star imagery. Imagine a yin-yang supernova. It’s a perfect Path for me. I’m excited to ask mom and grandma about it.” Her smile wilted. “If I can.”

Reaching up, I pulled her into a hug. “Hey. I’m sure grandma is fine. She’s a smart woman, no chance she would have gone to talk to her mother if she thought she would die. We’re in a truce right now too.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Do you think they can fix it?” She asked quietly. “Talk Black Sorrow into backing down so we can be a real family. Maybe dad will even come home.”

“I somehow doubt that.” I said wryly. “But I would like to be able to visit the Holy Dominion openly. I think they must have some kind of plan to get her to back down or they wouldn’t have decided to try.”

Letting her go, I stepped back. “Now, how about we search the district just to make sure there’s no one lying in wait and we can get started on staging the attack. If they aren’t here, the only other place that would be viable to hold an army is the guild. So once we clear the WCP we can start planning our assault.”

“Hell yes we can.” Said Stella bluntly as she arrived next to us. “Those horned bastards picked the wrong building to use. I have more than a few defensive redundancies in place. If we can get to my office I can seriously soften them up. Not to mention activating the lockdown protocols so we can kill them to the last man.”

I grinned. “Don’t suppose you and my uncle had a handy secret passage between your offices like in Rajak?”

She glared at me. “No. We did not. We were separated for years before I took over the branch. We’ll have to go in the front. Or the back. Or one of the side entrances. Suffice to say we have more than a few options even without a secret tunnel.”

“How about surveillance?” I asked with a frown. “Knowing where they all are, how many, and what their distribution is would be useful.”

She sighed. “We don’t have remote access. It’s a security risk. If we can check that stuff from outside the building so can someone else. Beaker was adamant that we not leave any access from external sources. The whole security system is air gapped, not that lack of connection is a real obstacle for some people. It’s better than nothing though.”

“So we need to get you inside.” I said with a nod. “Sounds good. Abel and I can escort you in while the others spread out and get ready to enter. No use coming in too hot and ruining our chances of tripping their trap.”

Abel, who was waiting nearby, chuckled, cracking his neck. “Nice. That last workout was a little boring. Had to stay on defense and then bail. Let’s get going then. If we take too long they’ll withdraw.”

With a sigh, I hopped to my feet, groaning a bit. I was still sore from the last fight, but my soul was in decent shape after some spiritual calming. Callie was on her way down, and we were on track to actually pull this off. This next part would be much more relaxing in some ways, just wiping out as many Wendigos as possible.

Which was why when we left the WCP, we left through the front door. Taking the elevator up into that old building, I stayed on high alert, waiting for any sign of an attack.

“It’s weird there’s no one down here.” I muttered as we stood in the rising lift. “The WCP is never empty. I assume they let everyone flee, hoping we would go down and check and get boxed in.” I smirked at the thought. “I bet they have people watching the outside waiting to spring the trap. Imagine their faces when we come OUT of there.”

Abel snickered. “Always funny seeing an enemy reeling. If we’re assuming they’re watching, we need to head for the Unity building top speed right out the gate, right?”

I triggered Mephistopheles, letting my hair blaze up into black flame. “Hell yes.” I said with a grin. “And go right through anything that tries to stop us. Stella, you good to keep up? I’m not really aware of your ability besides that it’s star based. Cosmic Witchcraft, right?”

Reaching into a pouch, she pulled out a small doll that looked like her. From another pouch she pulled a recognizable can of what I knew was a high end energy drink on Callus. She poured it over the doll, which glowed the same purple as the liquid, and her eyes followed suit. “Yeah.” She said nonchalantly. “I’ll be fine.”

“Alright.” I said with a grin. “Then try to keep up. I won’t be slowing down. Get ready for the Wendigo Run.”

We waited together for a minute or two, until there was a ding, and the elevator doors opened. I stepped forward, vanishing in a blaze of black as Mephisto’s Waltz began. I appeared at the front door, and the displaced air exploded out, the blast of wind and the sound of the sound barrier breaking shattering the glass windows at the front of the lobby.

My Eye of Revelation picked up a dozen horned forms moving, and I grinned as I stepped again. My waltz took me across the street, up the side of a building, off the skull of a Wendigo, and across the street in the opposite direction, shattering another’s chest.

My staff licked out, smashing limbs and cracking skulls as I let the waltz take me, carrying me in split second flashes back and forth down the street toward the Unity building.

It felt amazing. I stepped off a piece of broken and falling debris from one of my landings, walking through that sky and up toward one of the larger Wendigos on top of of a taller building. It died in a single strike, and then I was off, back to the ground.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see faces in the windows, people watching me work, and I felt…proud. These were my people, from my hometown, and they were seeing what I’d become, seeing me protect them from a terrible threat. It felt good, and it further reinforced my path moving forward.

Abel, meanwhile, was smashing through the monsters I left behind (I wasn’t getting all of them) with massive bloody fist images, while Stella blurred through the wreckage in a purple streak, not really engaging with the monsters.

That was fine, it meant she made good time, and when we touched down in front of the Unity building, we were all there at about the same time. Around us, dozens of antlered forms gathered, barely visible in the dark if not for my Eye of Revelation, most likely using some kind of native stealth ability.

The Unity building looked empty from where we stood, and we had an unobstructed path inside, which of course confirmed the trap.

“We ready?” I asked Stella, who was panting slightly. She nodded, straightening with a firm look, and we all strode into the building. Once we were inside, the monsters tried to follow, and we let them. Stella couldn’t trigger lockdowns yet, we needed to make sure the others made it in.

With that in mind, we walked deeper into the trap, letting them box us in, but none of us were particularly worried. In the back of my head, I could feel Callie getting closer. Since the fortress was gone, she couldn’t use the bangle to come back, and was taking a shuttle in from the atmosphere.

Being E-rank she was able to enter easily enough without damaging the labyrinth construct. I grinned to myself as I felt the malicious presences at my back. She’d better hurry up, or there wasn’t going to be any enemies left for her.