Sudden changes of scenery have become commonplace recently, but this one is more offputting than the rest. The lurching sensation that teleportation gives doesn’t let up as we enter, and I quickly realize that’s because we’re still moving.
Not that you’d think that if you just saw where we are. Claustrophobic wooden walls surround us on all sides, the surface a wild mixture of wood types that seem to meld in and out of each other with no sense of reason or rhyme.
Beyond the wood, I feel vaguely uneasy. It’s a familiar sensation, and I realize where I remember it from.
“This is a fragment,” I say.
“Yep,” Zil says.
“The Halcyon family has access to them,” Sierra explains. “I was not aware of this one’s existence.”
“I think I’m gonna throw up,” Adrian says, steadying himself against a wall. “Why’s the place spinning?”
I raise an eyebrow, looking at Sierra, then Zil. Both shrug.
“I don’t know where the Titan experiment is,” Zil admits. “But we never change the way we enter the labs.”
“We?” Adrian asks. He looks like he has a few choice words to add to that, but he stumbles, breathing deeply.
The unsteady movement of the hallway doesn’t shake me at all. Sierra and Zil both seem fine, too.
Poor Adrian.
Once again, Zil leads the way, though he seems less sure of where he’s going now than he did before.
“The labs are always changing,” he mutters when I ask him where he’s taking us. “It’ll take a while to figure out where the center is.”
“Sierra, do you have anything that could help?” I ask.
“If I had my Red Mage class, yes,” Sierra says. “Unfortunately, I do not. Adrian?”
“I think I’ll be back up in a few hours,” the Warrior replies, still looking green around the gills. “Maybe some slight usage now, but I don’t know.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” I say. “How do magic limits work for fragments?”
“I just punch things,” Zil grunts. “Not my problem.”
“Fragments tend to be unlimited,” Sierra says. “That does not, however, mean that the effects of backlash are negated. Using high-Category magic is possible here without experiencing it, but entering with backlash still prevents you from using that class.”
“Got it.” So Adrian is still going to be useless and Sierra is barely above “liability” status. Even a few weeks ago, that would be enough for me to abandon them or try to take their power for their own.
But I know what they can do now, and like it or not, I’m attached to them now. I’ll keep them alive, and in return, they’ll do the same. Eventually.
We travel through a maze of winding wooden hallways. This place never gets wider, and we’re forced to walk single-file, barely squeezing through the narrow spaces. Sierra keeps one hand on my shoulder, keeping her from accidentally bumping into me, and I use my Blood Sense to ensure I don’t hit Zil.
The lack of other life here is congruent with what I remember from the last fragment.
On second thought, I can’t rule out the existence of life here. I don’t know if Blood Sense even works on anomalies, and it’s entirely possible that something exists without blood.
Despite my altered physiology, which should be enough to counteract the constant movement of the wood within this fragment, my head begins to ache.
That’s not a good sign. I focus on it immediately. It’s not a health condition—it can’t be. Restore Self doesn’t even do anything when I attempt to use it.
“Be careful,” I say. “There may be enemies nearby.”
Sierra nods.
Adrian almost vomits.
You possess sight. Use it.
What is that even supposed to mean? I can see, but—oh. The passenger sees something I don’t, which almost definitely means it’s antimemetic.
I thought I would be alright, given the level of my Enhanced Antimemetic Resistance, but the prompt from my passenger indicates otherwise.
Instead of just passively relying on the resistance, I draw on it, channeling magic power into the aspect of myself that allows me to see past existence-veiling skills, and I see.
I blink, and the environment around us is different. There’s no abrupt change—instead, I finally see what I’ve been missing this entire time, recontextualizing the space we’re in.
The walls are crawling with white worms, snaking their way through the wood as if it doesn’t even exist. Discoloration persists in the walls where they pass through them, which explains the wild mix of colors and wood types. The already-tight corridor is packed with them, covering almost every inch of the surface from the floor to the ceiling.
And they’re crawling on us, slithering in and out of our skin just like the wood. Even as I watch, one pokes its slimy head out through Zil’s back.
“Shit,” I say. “Antimemetic worms. Stay still.”
I activate my Radiant Aura, belatedly remembering that if any of my three allies have any demon or anomaly in them, it’ll hurt them too.
Thankfully, they don’t. Instead, my Gold tier aura burns the worms where they come into contact with the divine light, excising that which exists beyond the system from the mortal plane.
The worms resist the skill for a second, but they’re blown away quickly enough. They spill out of the surfaces they slither through when they die, their life force burning away in moments. A dozen of them flop out from each of us, and thrice that perish from the walls. For a brief moment, the hallway ignites with a radiant bonfire.
“Ew,” Zil says. “Gross.”
Adrian is behind me, so I can’t see him, but I hear him vomit.
Their deaths must be removing the antimemetic effect that permeates them.
“Antimemetics,” Sierra says, not quite veiling the disgust in her voice. “I should have realized. Second Sight.”
I glance back at her just long enough to see her eyes glow a lustrous blue before returning to normal.
“The passive skills that would allow me to see properly are locked,” she admits. “Foolish of me.”
“Is everyone okay?” I ask. The question feels strange coming from my mouth.
“No permanent damage,” Sierra says. “If they were here for longer, maybe.”
My Radiant Aura is still active, and it burns a way forward for us as we continue. The worms really aren’t that tough, and the walls ignite with bright, burning light as the monsters sizzle away, flopping out of the walls and disintegrating.
At least the headache is gone.
“If there are demons here, I’m killing them,” I say. “It’s good for my soul.”
As it turns out, Devouring anomalies doesn’t work. The antimemetic worms don’t even start to put my soul back together. After I waste a few of them, I start capturing their souls. Anomaly souls work differently, but I’m still able to get thirty charges in my Soulshard Rifle by the time our situation changes.
It takes a while, but Zil eventually manages to find a place where the corridor widens.
I’ve been using Blood Sense every corner, and it’s only when we get here that it finally triggers on something.
Multiple somethings.
“Four ahead,” I say. “One of them looks human. I can’t tell what the others are.”
“This isn’t the right lab,” Zil says. “Fuck. They had a few dozen of ‘em when they tossed me out.”
The area in front of us is completely different compared to the corridors. Wood abruptly cuts off, replaced by cold steel and concrete. It’s not perfectly seamless, and I can feel the pull of the void where the lab isn’t perfectly connected.
It’s not as big as I thought it would be. There’s only one room, though it’s as large as the one where I was created. Rather than bloody test tubes, I see three steel coffins large enough to fit four Zils in, bolted to the ground at even intervals through the room. A single scientist paces across the coffins, tapping a notepad as he examines some display on each of them.
As we step into the lab, I Appraise him. At least, I try to.
And he looks up, his glasses catching the glint of artificial light.
My skill breaks. It breaks. I know what happens when I try to Appraise anomalies. The skill fails. The system tells me it fails.
This time, it simply fizzles out into nothingness.
But I don’t need the skill to know who I’m looking at. From this distance, my demonic eyes are good enough to catch sight of him.
His face is familiar because I’ve seen it in more than one place. First, a faded book of researches, and again when I saw his mother in a painting at the Halcyon outpost.
And that silver hair is recognizable anywhere.
“Alexander Callen,” I whisper.
“That is indeed my name,” the man in question says, catching the quiet whisper even fifty feet away. He speaks with an accent that I don’t quite recognize, and it makes everything he says sound harsh, grating. “Who might you be?”
Alexander Callen, Demon Specialist, takes his glasses off, revealing two glossy black orbs instead of eyes. They flash as he sweeps his vision across us, and I feel the sensation of magic lightly brushing over me.
“Azaril Halcyon. I see your family is no better than the Crowned at ridding themselves of their trash.
“Sierra Jade. Adrian Stahr. A pleasure to see you again.
“Evelyn Carnelian.”
He frowns as he looks at me, and the black void of his eyes flash, as if the darkness within them is ready to jump out.
“EV3, of the Crowned Islands operation,” he says. His tone is a mixture between curiosity and disdain. “You still live. And you are—“
I fire 25 charges from the Soulshard Rifle. A searing crimson beam explodes forth, wider than my torso. This many charges is enough to blow up an entire level of Novarath, I’m reasonably sure.
But the light fades and Callen is still standing there. One of his eyes looks slightly redder now.
“An interesting item,” he says. “Not of your make. Not of ours.”
I Bloodpath forward as Sierra activates a skill of her own, and Zil begins to grow in size.
Callen clicks his tongue. “There will be none of that. Domain: Silence.”
Blood melts back into flesh as my skill breaks. Sierra’s magic fades away as if it was never there.
The color fades out of the room, leaving everything a shade less vibrant than it was before.
“Domain: Perfect Self,” Zil replies.
I glance sidelong at him. He can use it again that fast?
Except nothing happens. I can’t sense a single iota of magic emerging from his body.
“EV3,” Callen says, shaking his head. “How disappointing.”
Rather than attempt to use a skill, I draw a knife, sprinting forward. Callen keeps walking towards me as I run.
“Look at you,” he says. “Your growth meets expectations, but look at you.”
He snaps his fingers, and I freeze, every muscle in my body locking up.
“Crowned Island project zero: the limitless demon. Subjects referred to as EV. Experimental Variant. One survivor confirmed.”
I open my mouth to curse him, but no words come out. My passenger is as silent as I am.
Callen waves me away, and I fly back, slamming into a steel wall behind Sierra.
“The goal of the project was to create a being that would stop at nothing to advance itself,” Callen says, clicking his tongue once more. “One that would only interface with others in order to use them, break them, and consume them. And what do we have instead?”
He gestures with his fingers, and my head moves of its own accord, forcing me to look at Sierra, then Adrian, then Zil.
“Allies.”
Callen holds a hand out, and my Soulshard Rifle flies towards him. He catches it, glaring at it.
“Allies.”
The man who was labeled as a “demon specialist” picks his clipboard back up, scribbling notes on it.
“The amalgam,” he mutters loudly enough for all of us to hear it. None of us can produce a single sound, though. We could hear a pin drop in here. “It must be the amalgam. Too many unfiltered memories, perhaps. Nothing else could have induced such undefined behavior.”
Callen scribbles for a while, then looks back at me as if he’s just remembered I’m still here. I don’t paint a very intimidating figure—my spine broke when I hit the wall, and Demonic Heritage isn’t healing me at all, thanks to his domain.
“If it were not for the committee, I would fix this myself,” he says. “You should thank your lucky stars that Clearwater was the lead. As it is, however…”
Adrian vanishes with a pop.
“Allow me to demonstrate why bonds hurt you, EV,” he says, gesturing as if he’s beckoning someone forth.
Sierra flies towards him as abruptly as I flew away, coming to a sharp, sudden stop right in front of him.
From my position half-slumped on the ground, I see him caress her face. Black lightning sparks from his eyes, lancing over the Blue Mage.
And Sierra screams. The Silence doesn’t stop her. Her scream is unmistakably shrill, and it does not stop.
The sound chills me to the bone, and I realize that she means more to me than a sack of flesh with XP attached to it.
Her pain affects me, and I struggle to keep my emotions in check. It should be easy. She’s just a temporary ally. I care for advancement more than anything else, and that includes any relationships with humans.
So why is a tear tracing its way down my face?
Sierra’s screaming abruptly stops, replaced by the same dull pop that took Adrian away.
“Sadly, it appears that my colleagues here have use for living material,” Callen says, shaking his head. “There will be nothing fruitful accomplished here.”
I have never wanted to kill anyone more. Not Noren, not the demon tree, not Marie, not even Sapphire.
He hurt Sierra with his own hands.
I will see him dead.
“I suppose this jaunt is compromised,” Callen sighs. “Very well. I have no further use for this fragment.”
He looks upward, and then he, too, vanishes.
The Silence remains, but the pressure settling on us has lessened drastically. I can move now, and I can feel my spine mending itself as Demonic Heritage works its magic.
I cannot, however, use any of my active skills.
From the chagrined look on Zil’s face, he can’t either.
“I’m going to kill him,” I snarl.
I want to rip his intestines out and shove them down his throat. I want to shatter his bones and devour what’s within. I want to tear him apart from the inside out.
White-hot rage burns through me, and I have nothing to use it on.
“We will,” Zil assures me, his voice surprisingly soft. “First, we must—“
Click. Click. Click.
The opaque lids of the coffins click open.
Pop.
Callen’s influence makes itself known one last time. Zil’s face flashes with surprise for a single instant, and then he’s gone too.
And three figures rise from the coffins, each of them twenty feet tall and swirling with so much black-and-white energy that I can’t make out their silhouettes.
None of my skills are active. These monsters are bursting with power. Their very existence shakes the stability of this fragment. Each lumbering step they take sends cracks splintering through the lab, threatening to unveil the void beyond.
This is an impossible fight. I should run.
Earlier, I sensed them through their blood.
The burning rage within me condenses, and I grip my knife.
“If you bleed,” I whisper, my spine clicking back into place, “I can kill you.”
Sudden changes of scenery have become commonplace recently, but this one is more offputting than the rest. The lurching sensation that teleportation gives doesn’t let up as we enter, and I quickly realize that’s because we’re still moving.
Not that you’d think that if you just saw where we are. Claustrophobic wooden walls surround us on all sides, the surface a wild mixture of wood types that seem to meld in and out of each other with no sense of reason or rhyme.
Beyond the wood, I feel vaguely uneasy. It’s a familiar sensation, and I realize where I remember it from.
“This is a fragment,” I say.
“Yep,” Zil says.
“The Halcyon family has access to them,” Sierra explains. “I was not aware of this one’s existence.”
“I think I’m gonna throw up,” Adrian says, steadying himself against a wall. “Why’s the place spinning?”
I raise an eyebrow, looking at Sierra, then Zil. Both shrug.
“I don’t know where the Titan experiment is,” Zil admits. “But we never change the way we enter the labs.”
“We?” Adrian asks. He looks like he has a few choice words to add to that, but he stumbles, breathing deeply.
The unsteady movement of the hallway doesn’t shake me at all. Sierra and Zil both seem fine, too.
Poor Adrian.
Once again, Zil leads the way, though he seems less sure of where he’s going now than he did before.
“The labs are always changing,” he mutters when I ask him where he’s taking us. “It’ll take a while to figure out where the center is.”
“Sierra, do you have anything that could help?” I ask.
“If I had my Red Mage class, yes,” Sierra says. “Unfortunately, I do not. Adrian?”
“I think I’ll be back up in a few hours,” the Warrior replies, still looking green around the gills. “Maybe some slight usage now, but I don’t know.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” I say. “How do magic limits work for fragments?”
“I just punch things,” Zil grunts. “Not my problem.”
“Fragments tend to be unlimited,” Sierra says. “That does not, however, mean that the effects of backlash are negated. Using high-Category magic is possible here without experiencing it, but entering with backlash still prevents you from using that class.”
“Got it.” So Adrian is still going to be useless and Sierra is barely above “liability” status. Even a few weeks ago, that would be enough for me to abandon them or try to take their power for their own.
But I know what they can do now, and like it or not, I’m attached to them now. I’ll keep them alive, and in return, they’ll do the same. Eventually.
We travel through a maze of winding wooden hallways. This place never gets wider, and we’re forced to walk single-file, barely squeezing through the narrow spaces. Sierra keeps one hand on my shoulder, keeping her from accidentally bumping into me, and I use my Blood Sense to ensure I don’t hit Zil.
The lack of other life here is congruent with what I remember from the last fragment.
On second thought, I can’t rule out the existence of life here. I don’t know if Blood Sense even works on anomalies, and it’s entirely possible that something exists without blood.
Despite my altered physiology, which should be enough to counteract the constant movement of the wood within this fragment, my head begins to ache.
That’s not a good sign. I focus on it immediately. It’s not a health condition—it can’t be. Restore Self doesn’t even do anything when I attempt to use it.
“Be careful,” I say. “There may be enemies nearby.”
Sierra nods.
Adrian almost vomits.
You possess sight. Use it.
What is that even supposed to mean? I can see, but—oh. The passenger sees something I don’t, which almost definitely means it’s antimemetic.
I thought I would be alright, given the level of my Enhanced Antimemetic Resistance, but the prompt from my passenger indicates otherwise.
Instead of just passively relying on the resistance, I draw on it, channeling magic power into the aspect of myself that allows me to see past existence-veiling skills, and I see.
I blink, and the environment around us is different. There’s no abrupt change—instead, I finally see what I’ve been missing this entire time, recontextualizing the space we’re in.
The walls are crawling with white worms, snaking their way through the wood as if it doesn’t even exist. Discoloration persists in the walls where they pass through them, which explains the wild mix of colors and wood types. The already-tight corridor is packed with them, covering almost every inch of the surface from the floor to the ceiling.
And they’re crawling on us, slithering in and out of our skin just like the wood. Even as I watch, one pokes its slimy head out through Zil’s back.
“Shit,” I say. “Antimemetic worms. Stay still.”
I activate my Radiant Aura, belatedly remembering that if any of my three allies have any demon or anomaly in them, it’ll hurt them too.
Thankfully, they don’t. Instead, my Gold tier aura burns the worms where they come into contact with the divine light, excising that which exists beyond the system from the mortal plane.
The worms resist the skill for a second, but they’re blown away quickly enough. They spill out of the surfaces they slither through when they die, their life force burning away in moments. A dozen of them flop out from each of us, and thrice that perish from the walls. For a brief moment, the hallway ignites with a radiant bonfire.
“Ew,” Zil says. “Gross.”
Adrian is behind me, so I can’t see him, but I hear him vomit.
Their deaths must be removing the antimemetic effect that permeates them.
“Antimemetics,” Sierra says, not quite veiling the disgust in her voice. “I should have realized. Second Sight.”
I glance back at her just long enough to see her eyes glow a lustrous blue before returning to normal.
“The passive skills that would allow me to see properly are locked,” she admits. “Foolish of me.”
“Is everyone okay?” I ask. The question feels strange coming from my mouth.
“No permanent damage,” Sierra says. “If they were here for longer, maybe.”
My Radiant Aura is still active, and it burns a way forward for us as we continue. The worms really aren’t that tough, and the walls ignite with bright, burning light as the monsters sizzle away, flopping out of the walls and disintegrating.
At least the headache is gone.
“If there are demons here, I’m killing them,” I say. “It’s good for my soul.”
As it turns out, Devouring anomalies doesn’t work. The antimemetic worms don’t even start to put my soul back together. After I waste a few of them, I start capturing their souls. Anomaly souls work differently, but I’m still able to get thirty charges in my Soulshard Rifle by the time our situation changes.
It takes a while, but Zil eventually manages to find a place where the corridor widens.
I’ve been using Blood Sense every corner, and it’s only when we get here that it finally triggers on something.
Multiple somethings.
“Four ahead,” I say. “One of them looks human. I can’t tell what the others are.”
“This isn’t the right lab,” Zil says. “Fuck. They had a few dozen of ‘em when they tossed me out.”
The area in front of us is completely different compared to the corridors. Wood abruptly cuts off, replaced by cold steel and concrete. It’s not perfectly seamless, and I can feel the pull of the void where the lab isn’t perfectly connected.
It’s not as big as I thought it would be. There’s only one room, though it’s as large as the one where I was created. Rather than bloody test tubes, I see three steel coffins large enough to fit four Zils in, bolted to the ground at even intervals through the room. A single scientist paces across the coffins, tapping a notepad as he examines some display on each of them.
As we step into the lab, I Appraise him. At least, I try to.
And he looks up, his glasses catching the glint of artificial light.
My skill breaks. It breaks. I know what happens when I try to Appraise anomalies. The skill fails. The system tells me it fails.
This time, it simply fizzles out into nothingness.
But I don’t need the skill to know who I’m looking at. From this distance, my demonic eyes are good enough to catch sight of him.
His face is familiar because I’ve seen it in more than one place. First, a faded book of researches, and again when I saw his mother in a painting at the Halcyon outpost.
And that silver hair is recognizable anywhere.
“Alexander Callen,” I whisper.
“That is indeed my name,” the man in question says, catching the quiet whisper even fifty feet away. He speaks with an accent that I don’t quite recognize, and it makes everything he says sound harsh, grating. “Who might you be?”
Alexander Callen, Demon Specialist, takes his glasses off, revealing two glossy black orbs instead of eyes. They flash as he sweeps his vision across us, and I feel the sensation of magic lightly brushing over me.
“Azaril Halcyon. I see your family is no better than the Crowned at ridding themselves of their trash.
“Sierra Jade. Adrian Stahr. A pleasure to see you again.
“Evelyn Carnelian.”
He frowns as he looks at me, and the black void of his eyes flash, as if the darkness within them is ready to jump out.
“EV3, of the Crowned Islands operation,” he says. His tone is a mixture between curiosity and disdain. “You still live. And you are—“
I fire 25 charges from the Soulshard Rifle. A searing crimson beam explodes forth, wider than my torso. This many charges is enough to blow up an entire level of Novarath, I’m reasonably sure.
But the light fades and Callen is still standing there. One of his eyes looks slightly redder now.
“An interesting item,” he says. “Not of your make. Not of ours.”
I Bloodpath forward as Sierra activates a skill of her own, and Zil begins to grow in size.
Callen clicks his tongue. “There will be none of that. Domain: Silence.”
Blood melts back into flesh as my skill breaks. Sierra’s magic fades away as if it was never there.
The color fades out of the room, leaving everything a shade less vibrant than it was before.
“Domain: Perfect Self,” Zil replies.
I glance sidelong at him. He can use it again that fast?
Except nothing happens. I can’t sense a single iota of magic emerging from his body.
“EV3,” Callen says, shaking his head. “How disappointing.”
Rather than attempt to use a skill, I draw a knife, sprinting forward. Callen keeps walking towards me as I run.
“Look at you,” he says. “Your growth meets expectations, but look at you.”
He snaps his fingers, and I freeze, every muscle in my body locking up.
“Crowned Island project zero: the limitless demon. Subjects referred to as EV. Experimental Variant. One survivor confirmed.”
I open my mouth to curse him, but no words come out. My passenger is as silent as I am.
Callen waves me away, and I fly back, slamming into a steel wall behind Sierra.
“The goal of the project was to create a being that would stop at nothing to advance itself,” Callen says, clicking his tongue once more. “One that would only interface with others in order to use them, break them, and consume them. And what do we have instead?”
He gestures with his fingers, and my head moves of its own accord, forcing me to look at Sierra, then Adrian, then Zil.
“Allies.”
Callen holds a hand out, and my Soulshard Rifle flies towards him. He catches it, glaring at it.
“Allies.”
The man who was labeled as a “demon specialist” picks his clipboard back up, scribbling notes on it.
“The amalgam,” he mutters loudly enough for all of us to hear it. None of us can produce a single sound, though. We could hear a pin drop in here. “It must be the amalgam. Too many unfiltered memories, perhaps. Nothing else could have induced such undefined behavior.”
Callen scribbles for a while, then looks back at me as if he’s just remembered I’m still here. I don’t paint a very intimidating figure—my spine broke when I hit the wall, and Demonic Heritage isn’t healing me at all, thanks to his domain.
“If it were not for the committee, I would fix this myself,” he says. “You should thank your lucky stars that Clearwater was the lead. As it is, however…”
Adrian vanishes with a pop.
“Allow me to demonstrate why bonds hurt you, EV,” he says, gesturing as if he’s beckoning someone forth.
Sierra flies towards him as abruptly as I flew away, coming to a sharp, sudden stop right in front of him.
From my position half-slumped on the ground, I see him caress her face. Black lightning sparks from his eyes, lancing over the Blue Mage.
And Sierra screams. The Silence doesn’t stop her. Her scream is unmistakably shrill, and it does not stop.
The sound chills me to the bone, and I realize that she means more to me than a sack of flesh with XP attached to it.
Her pain affects me, and I struggle to keep my emotions in check. It should be easy. She’s just a temporary ally. I care for advancement more than anything else, and that includes any relationships with humans.
So why is a tear tracing its way down my face?
Sierra’s screaming abruptly stops, replaced by the same dull pop that took Adrian away.
“Sadly, it appears that my colleagues here have use for living material,” Callen says, shaking his head. “There will be nothing fruitful accomplished here.”
I have never wanted to kill anyone more. Not Noren, not the demon tree, not Marie, not even Sapphire.
He hurt Sierra with his own hands.
I will see him dead.
“I suppose this jaunt is compromised,” Callen sighs. “Very well. I have no further use for this fragment.”
He looks upward, and then he, too, vanishes.
The Silence remains, but the pressure settling on us has lessened drastically. I can move now, and I can feel my spine mending itself as Demonic Heritage works its magic.
I cannot, however, use any of my active skills.
From the chagrined look on Zil’s face, he can’t either.
“I’m going to kill him,” I snarl.
I want to rip his intestines out and shove them down his throat. I want to shatter his bones and devour what’s within. I want to tear him apart from the inside out.
White-hot rage burns through me, and I have nothing to use it on.
“We will,” Zil assures me, his voice surprisingly soft. “First, we must—“
Click. Click. Click.
The opaque lids of the coffins click open.
Pop.
Callen’s influence makes itself known one last time. Zil’s face flashes with surprise for a single instant, and then he’s gone too.
And three figures rise from the coffins, each of them twenty feet tall and swirling with so much black-and-white energy that I can’t make out their silhouettes.
None of my skills are active. These monsters are bursting with power. Their very existence shakes the stability of this fragment. Each lumbering step they take sends cracks splintering through the lab, threatening to unveil the void beyond.
This is an impossible fight. I should run.
Earlier, I sensed them through their blood.
The burning rage within me condenses, and I grip my knife.
“If you bleed,” I whisper, my spine clicking back into place, “I can kill you.”
