1

It was time. The two teams parted ways with solemn farewells. Izumi and Faalan shook hands with the surviving members of the expedition, mindful of the possibility of never seeing each other again. Most of them spoke nothing, fearing the fragile equilibrium in which their hearts still hung would not endure the effort. On his turn, Waramoti squeezed the summoned champion’s hand without a word, resolution in his gaze, and merely nodded, before moving on. The time for their last exchange hadn’t come yet, he was certain of it, and he didn’t want to give the idea any root on his mind.

Shaking hands with Hrugnaw, a good part of Izumi’s wrist too disappeared in the crulean’s large grip. Nevertheless, Hrugnaw’s hold was gentle as a feather.

“I should be going there with you,” she told the woman.

“Just call it the will of the Divines,” Izumi replied. “You still have a reason to live, I bet. I don’t know what your people say at the moment of parting, but live long and prosper.”

To this Hrugnaw said nothing, but made what appeared to be a smile, and departed.

Then came already the end of the short line. Gronan was the last of it.

“I ask not for forgiveness,” Faalan told him. “But it would give me peace if you did not forget me.”

“I have no forgiveness for you,” Gronan said, looking away. “But I certainly will not forget you. Not until you have finished your job and returned to Utenvik, to collect your payment. Fail to do so, and your son will have to take it instead. And I pray he will not grow up a fool like his father.”

Faalan closed his eyes and nodded.

“...Thank you, Gronan.”

The Dharvic leader moved on to Izumi.

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “This means you will have to give up on the secret power of the ancients. Hope you won’t hold it against me, but if we do live through the fight, we’re going to destroy the weapon. You see, a painted puppet or not, my terrible master isn’t a huge fan of slavery, or cheating to win.”

Gronan’s face was grim, but his handshake warm.

“Only an ungrateful cretin would hold a grudge to the one he owes his life twice over,” he replied. “I will not thank you for ruining my people’s dream of freedom. But I shall hold faith that you are victorious. Do not keep us waiting for too long.”

With that, the members of team A headed upstairs, leaving the heroes.

Izumi and Faalan quietly watched the crew ascend to the higher level, a procession of dim lamps in the dark, a line of true survivors. After the others had gone out of sight, Izumi then turned back to the tall warrior beside her.

“Well, are you still up for this?” she asked. “If you happened to say, ‘on a second thought...’ now, I wouldn’t really have the heart to keep you.”

“Yet you would still fight, even if I said such things?” he asked.

“That was plan A,” Izumi replied. “But, as you’d expect, dying alone in a dark cave isn’t really the destiny I envisioned for myself in another world. No matter how I may seem, I’m still a delicate lady on the inside. And I want to win this! So I will bet everything on that outcome.”

“Good thing then,” Faalan replied, “that I never once thought of declining.”

Speaking no more, the two left downstairs. They descended into the vault hall, and walked past the mighty pillars, the breathtaking treasury on the far right, the district inhabited by machines and flame on the far left. Through the narrow pass in the north, they descended deeper and deeper, past the gallery of golden tablets and the lists of ancient kings, eventually reaching the atrium with the tale of creation written on its walls, illuminated for them by the rerouted light of a new dawn. The time was likely somewhere between six and seven in the morning.

Izumi peered over the edge of the top floor walkway, to the bottom of that rectangular pit. Their enemy stood before the exit tunnel, at the light’s limit, indomitable and looming.

“We are being expected,” Faalan noted.

“Let’s not leave him hanging then,” Izumi said and headed for the stairs.

They climbed down to the level below, and kept going. While out of their sight, the daemon had moved up to the second floor to intercept them. A fight could no longer be avoided. The pair of warriors stepped away from the staircase and stood side by side to face their nemesis.

“How shall we do this?” Faalan inquired, drawing his saber and stood a few paces to Izumi’s left.

“I’m tanking, you’re the dps,” Izumi replied, pulling the Amygla from the magnetite vest.

“What does that mean?”

“It means, stay alive and look for an opening.”

Placing her sword before her, tip to the floor, she gripped the handle with both hands and called out,

“Itaka Izumi, entering the ring! Sifl! Gram! Tauhirn!”

Naming the runes, veiling her frail form with magical effects, she raised her weapon and spun it around into a two-handed kendo stance. The time of words was past. No more room left for regrets or doubts.

There was only one way forward, to survive, to live.

Victory. From this point on, only victory mattered.

Emptying her mind of all other thoughts, Izumi kicked off the ground and threw herself into battle once more.

The enemy waited for her opener. Crossing the distance in a few quick steps, Izumi reached striking range and cut down. Leaning deep right, the daemon evaded the slice, displaying agility glaringly abnormal for its heavy frame. Without flinching or pausing, she turned her missed cut into a horizontal swing, but the enemy avoided it just as easily, retreating out of range with a revolving backstep. As soon as her blade had passed, it bounced back like a tempest, the deadly right fist surging at her gut.

Instead of reflexively backing up or attempting to parry, Izumi stepped boldly in past the claws, turned, drawing her sword along, and cleaved open the monster’s exposed flank. The daemon’s form melted into an explosion of shadowy smoke, dispersing from the cut’s path. In the next instant, it reappeared behind her. She anticipated it. Letting the blade spin around in her loose hold, she pointed the sword back under her arm, turned on her heels and stabbed. The daemon dodged the strike by a hair, shifting sideways. With a wrathful roar, it bashed the sword aside with a backhanded lash, as if the deadly weapon were only a bothersome stick.

Even a casual brush had staggering force behind it. Any ordinary human swordsman would have likely failed then and there, if not any sooner. But Carmelia’s magic had raised Izumi well above the range of average. It was not only for the Emperor’s pawns that the farsighted sorceress had granted those gifts; they had all been but an obstacle on the way to a moment like this.

Keeping her composure, Izumi widened her stance, bent her knees to absorb the force, and responded with another horizontal slash of terrible might. The Amygla boomed, tearing through air, friction rattling it, and the monster could only escape destruction by retreating into immaterial form again. Fixing her posture, Izumi readied herself for pursuit, her pulse quick out of excitement.

She could do it.

She could fight back.

In Varnam, she had been forced on the defensive. Avoiding instant death had been the best she could do. Now, she was trading blows on equal ground with the same kind of a monster. Her eyes could keep up with the creature, her body could withstand its strength. No, better than that, she had seized the initiative. Beyond simply buying time for the others, they actually had a credible chance to win.

A chance, perhaps, but the outcome was yet far from set in stone.

The daemon reappeared close in front of her, throwing a sharp spin kick at the woman. It was too fast to dodge, she could only attempt to parry. Bringing up the greatsword in front of her like a shield, supporting the blade with her left hand, holding the handle with the right, Izumi managed to redirect most of the force aside. Even then, her guard was blown apart, the greatsword flung aside, and she felt pain reach her arms and wrists even through the dense layers of mana.

Magic or not, her story would have likely ended there—had she fought alone.

Before the daemon’s follow-up could reach her, Faalan was upon it.

Attacking from behind, his slim blade fell on the creature like a whisper of death. But though his timing was flawless, victory wouldn’t come so easily against such an absurd adversary. Assuming that it couldn’t see him because it wasn’t looking at him would have been only extreme folly, considering how the creature had no eyes in the first place. It simply had no blind spots either.

The daemon twisted its shoulders to dodge Faalan’s cut. It turned and lashed back to force him to keep at a distance. Recovering her balance, Izumi struck again, to allow Faalan a second try, but her hastiness caused the stab to lack the necessary force. With no hesitation, nor fear of pain, the monster stilled the blade short by straight up grabbing it in its fist. Overpowering Izumi’s two-handed hold, the beast bent the Amygla aside and turned. A back kick like a speeding train came flying over the blade, straight at her head.

Izumi knelt to evade and cut down to free her weapon. The beast released its hold, and in the next instant, the dreadful claws were already coming down to halve her face. And again, her partner’s quick moves saved Izumi from early demise.

It was only while under the effects of Sifl, that she could recognize the true extent of the silvery hero’s talent. In a few brisk moves of his hand, Faalan’s flickering saber covered a vast area around him, banishing the foe twice in rapid succession. Even with her accelerated perception, she could barely follow the course of his sword.

The monster warped here and there around the man, searching for an opening, but he allowed it none on the ground. Instead, the daemon found a safe spot only directly above the warrior. Sinking its barbed feet into the ceiling, it traded blows with Faalan hanging upside down, lashing at him in mad rage.

The saber’s thin orichalcum coating alone wouldn’t have endured such a ferocious storm, if not for its wielder’s masterful technique. Faalan answered each punch by cutting the fist, and repelled slashing claws by severing them, preemptively canceling each attack before it could be carried out to completion.

Nevertheless, the daemons’ raw physical might, or speed, or even regenerative abilities weren’t the sole explanation to their success. In their grotesque heads lurked terrible cunning and learning capability, enabling them to adapt to any opponent. As their contest drew on, it steadily increased both the speed and the power of its assault. Converting its fists into slashing blades, it unleashed a fierce barrage of strikes upon the Half-Elf. Knowing that only the slightest brush could mean death, he was forced to break off and retreat. Dropping low to save his head from a cut he failed to neutralize, the man rolled back to get to a safe distance. His enemy wouldn’t miss this opening. In a blink of an eye, the monster reappeared on the ground level, standing tall above Faalan and reached down to seize him.

Its intentions were interrupted by Izumi’s diagonal upward cut.

Dodging the first swing by leaning back, it anticipated the continuation, and stepped in, catching the blade in its reshaped hands. Turning its abominable face at her, the monster growled, oozing such murderous will that even the boldest of warlords would have despaired and crumbled then.

But knowledge had ever been humans’ primary weapon against terror, and the techniques in Izumi’s arsenal equipped her for even such a situation. Adjusting her hold without delay, operating her sword now like a staff, she rotated the blade around, locked the creature’s wrist, forced the dark fingers loose, and then stabbed through the hold at full power, aiming at the terrible head.

An explosion of black mist briefly veiled her field of view and the daemon retreated, reappearing several feet away by the back wall, before it could be trapped between the two warriors again.

“You okay?” Izumi asked Faalan, taking the chance to recover.

“So far,” he replied, standing back up and flexing his shoulders.

They had survived the first round and faced the foe again, gathering their strength and courage. How many more such races of steel and terror would they have to endure? As if it weren’t challenging enough on the physical level, any battle with daemons was also that of the mind. Simply standing in its loathsome presence was constantly testing their wills. Each passing moment in that horror’s vicinity, pressured by its sheer existence, emboldened the enemy’s advantage, and drew wider the weaknesses of the resistance.

Still, no mere whim would save them this time.

There was no escape. No one to come to their rescue.

Certain death awaited one side in this contest, and the only way for the two heroes to obtain victory was by wrestling it from the unforgiving grip of their adversary.

“As I thought, this is going to be a hassle,” Izumi said and raised her blade once more.

2

The expedition crew reached the topmost floor of the city without incidents along the way. Rather, it was unnerving how quiet everything was. There was no sign, no sound, not even a hint of the doubtless intense battle being waged far under their feet.

Or, was there even one?

Most of the mercenaries were quite certain that the two undeniably brave but nevertheless foolish fighters were already dead, and the daemon was likely well on its way up after the rest. Therefore, they hurried their steps, sensing the promise of freedom ahead of them, and ran up the stairs to the unguarded exit.

The antechamber was empty. So was the corridor after it.

The group climbed up the stairs and rushed to the gallery with the switches, where they finally took a break, arbalests ready and pointed into the blackness whence they’d come.

They had made a brief detour along the way, to pick up cheruleum bars from the first layer storage rooms. Minsk and Selver started to unpack the delicate ore now, as per Aft’s instructions, placing the ingots near major pillars upholding the ceiling right by the gateway.

“You should probably start running,” Aft told Gronan and the rest. “Can't say how long it will take for the material to go critical, but it will be somewhere between ‘soon’ and ‘very soon’. There’ll be no way to stop it. And you don’t want to be anywhere near when it goes off, unless you’re a friend of black-burned bacon.”

Waramoti stood in the middle of the room, staring into the dark tunnel they had come from, a tense, restless look on his face. Gronan now stepped up to him, putting his hand on the young bard’s shoulder.

“They will make it,” he assured. “If there is a way, they will find it.”

“Ah, I know,” Waramoti replied with forceful lightness, and turned to follow after the others.

Looking back, Gronan told the engineer. “Get on with it.”

“There.” Aft applied his spell on one of the ingots and placed it in the nearest pile. “The countdown is on! Hurry!”

The crew went running towards the exit—but stopped short there.

One of them wasn’t running. Instead, the imposing frame of Joort, the field kitchen chief, stood in front of the exit, blocking the way. As the others approached, he turned around, looking directly at Gronan with a strange look on his face.

“What are you doing?” Gronan shouted at him. “There’s no time! Go!”

“We warned you,” Joort told him in a low tone, in no hurry to leave anywhere. “’Don’t go to Eylia.’ We told you, over and over, Gronan. Yet you wouldn’t listen.”

Before everyone’s perplexed faces, Joort started to dig through the deep pockets of his long coat, freely expelling the contents onto the floor at their feet. They were thin bars of green-blue ore, faintly glowing. Cheruleum, dozens of ingots. The man had to have stuffed them into his pockets at the storage, while no one was looking.

“We have guarded the secrets of Eylia for a thousand years!” he yelled, tossing the highly volatile chunks everywhere around them. “And they will die together with you, Gronan Arkentahl!”

There could only be one explanation to his otherwise senseless words. At a point of history no one knew about, he had given up his membership in Alelard in favor of a different clan. Even though the commitment was meant to be lifelong.

“Owlshead bastard!” Gronan shouted. Holding back no more, he sprung forward and punched Joort in the face, knocking the man down. Now everyone ran over the body of the downed cook, while his mad laughter rang down the corridor in their ears.

“We’re not gonna make it!” Aft shouted as they ran. “That much cheruleum in one place—this whole place will come crashing!”

“RUN!” Gronan howled, and run they did, as fast as they reasonably could.

The tunnels and stairs never seemed to end, yet end they finally did, while painfully long seconds crawled on. All that light and open space after the suffocating darkness of the underground halls felt like a reward on their own, sweeter than gold. Outside the windows of the Capitol hall, a new day had already brightened up, pale and clear, a stranger to the nightly terror of down below. The view revitalized the survivors, giving their exhausted legs the necessary strength to keep chasing safety, which dangled already within reach.

They were about halfway down the hall, when the northern part of the building ceased to exist. There wasn’t much of a racket, at first. Most of the pressure and noise of the cheruleum explosion was suppressed by the landmasses in between. But the side-effects were immediately visible. A major portion of the building was shot up to the sky in one gargantuan pillar of land, rock, smoke, and turquoise fire, as if a volcano had erupted beneath their feet.

Then came the noise. As if a massive thunderbolt had struck nearby, the entire mountain region appeared to echo the horrid bang, which rang crackling across the skies. The earth jumped, throwing the fleeing mercenaries off their feet, and the solid stone floor beneath them squirmed from side to side, as if a pack of giant snakes had wriggled under it.

As Aft had astutely predicted, the ancient building wouldn’t withstand such treatment. The hall walls burst apart in places, ejecting the building blocks around. Pillars broke and toppled, detaching from their millennia-old holding places. Then, deprived of adequate support, the ceiling began to collapse, the wide central dome tilting heavily eastward.

“Run! Run!” Gronan urged the others, pushing up to his feet as the worst of the shaking had ceased. He grabbed struggling Waramoti by the waist and carried the young man out as he ran, the others close by behind him. A falling chunk of marble the size of a night drawer nearly crushed Aft, but Hrugnaw saw it coming and tackled the debris aside at the last moment.

Even then, it looked like they wouldn’t make it in time, in spite of their best efforts. The top half of the building was sinking down on them at a continuously quickening rate, while they simply couldn’t run any faster. Yet, as if by a miracle, the sturdier frame of the entrance withstood the avalanche of stone, holding it back just long enough for the last of the mercenaries to reach through. Still, Gubal and Minsk would have likely been crushed, had not Hrugnaw, inspired by Gronan’s example, grabbed both of them under her vast arms and jumped to safety.

Tons of dust and smoke were expelled from the doorways and window openings, momentarily veiling the entire area around the building. The rumble drowned out all other sounds, as every single fragment of the Capitol that could move even a little made sure to assume a more stable resting position, closer to the ground.

Then, at last, peace returned.

Cleared by the mountain winds, the dust clouds gradually scattered and pushed westward, revealing the full extent of the devastation. Of the massive Capitol building, which had previously dominated the surface view in its dignified majesty, only the torn up front facade and a portion of the collapsed, red-tiled dome were left. All else was reduced to a gigantic mound of miscellaneous rubble.

All the mercenaries, save for the traitorous Joort, had escaped with their lives, but none of them could produce even the faintest sound to celebrate the achievement. Covered in dust and snow they stood, like a collection of plaster sculptures, staring at the ruins in open shock.

The path to the underground city and the ancient riches was gone, lost under countless masses of stone. But what was worse, the two brave heroes might still have been underneath it all. Even if there was another doorway, if it was in the Capitol, or anywhere close to this side of the city, it was now gone. Gazing at the wide hill of debris, at a loss of words, Waramoti felt a cold wave of despair grip his heart, the likes of which he had never felt on any battlefield in his life.

“They’re never gonna get out of there!” Vil exhaled a short distance behind him, all hope absent from his voice.

Giving the wrecked Capitol one last, bitter look, Gronan turned away.

“Even so,” he said, “we will wait.”

3

Izumi cut down. She overestimated her reach in a hurry, and the blade was too easily evaded. Aiming at the neck was tempting, but the target too elusive and the opponent too perceptive. It was well aware of its weaknesses. Unless the monster was sufficiently debilitated or distracted first, scoring a clean kill was impossible. She had figured as much by now, yet she kept taking her chances. She was getting tired, impatient, easily baited. Making mistakes added to the frustration, thereby increasing their frequency.

Whether any of the noise or the pressure of the explosion above could be perceived here in the depths, none of the combatants noticed. Their unwavering focus allowed no distractions.

Shut up. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Move.

The key to enduring the psychological load of extended battles was to ignore any semblance of progress and merely treat each moment as if it were the very beginning. In online multiplayer games, where a raid could drag on for hours, the sight of the boss’s health bar waning and the premature relief over the approaching conclusion, was likely among the most common causes of wipeouts.

It wouldn’t be over until the enemy was dead.

Until that very moment, anything was still possible.

Moreover, there were no health bars or percentages visible in real life. There was no knowing the enemy’s condition, or how close was victory. The daemon betrayed no hint of any of this. All Izumi could tell with unnecessary clarity was the steady depletion of her own strength and stamina. This knowledge as well she had to eliminate from her awareness, lest the ending would come too soon.

Her endurance was infinite.

Her strength was infinite.

She had to believe so, even if it couldn’t have been further from the truth, and operate under this fallacious faith, or else the weight of her own mortality would crush her spirit even before the fists of the enemy.

Restraining her nerves, forcing her mind empty of extraneous thoughts, Izumi steeled her focus and moved her hands. Moved her legs. Stopping meant death. She had to keep moving. And yet, no move could be meaningless and wasteful, but done for a clear purpose—to deliver the killing blow, or to set it up, by the shortest, most efficient way possible.

Feint towards right. Swift step back and a cut up. Even without seeing it, fighting off Faalan's saber on the other side, the daemon sensed her blade, read her intentions. It leaned back to dodge. Turning around clockwise, she dropped low, and cut down, slicing the creature’s right leg. Her attack connected. Feeling the tension and resistance in her hands, the satisfying weight of slicing through solid matter in her fingers, Izumi’s tired unconscious was already congratulating herself for a job well done.

Too soon.

Losing a leg was not immediately fatal; her attack was simply not judged worth avoiding.

Well before gravity toppled the monster, it had reshaped its leg and kicked back at her. Berating herself for getting carried away, Izumi pulled the greatsword back in her hands to guard and received the blow head on. The metal of the sword endured it, the enhanced strength of her arms wouldn’t fail either, but her meager body mass was not enough to absorb the impact in full. Izumi was sent sliding across the floor like a rag, only stopped by the northern wall.

“Ghh…!”

Faalan was ready. Not giving the daemon the chance to chase after Izumi, he stepped in and his saber flashed once more, drawing a silvery double arc across the air. Unable to fully evade, the daemon was cut and staggered back. The man pursued it, his sword drawing a curve sharp as a needle’s eye as he punctured the monster’s exposed midriff. But he’d been fooled, lured in by false success. The enemy vanished. The black smoke appeared to coil all over the floor, momentarily confusing the warrior. While he gazed around, the creature reappeared kneeling behind him. He wouldn’t be able to react in time. Izumi saw it, but she was too far away to interfere directly.

“Catch!” she instead shouted and threw her sword.

Spinning wildly, the Amgyla sliced across the air towards the combatants. The daemon caught the blade in its grip, stilling it—but the improvised distraction had done its job. In the extra half a second he’d been gifted, Faalan spun around and cut at the beast’s head. The monster could only escape by warping again. Faalan reached out and seized the handle of the ownerless greatsword while it still lingered in mid-air. Armed with a weapon in both hands, he turned and cut a full circle, forcing the daemon to keep clear of him and take distance.

Meanwhile, Izumi was able to rejoin the fight.

“Awfully heavy, isn’t it?” Faalan asked, handing her sword back.

“I don’t think so?” she remarked. “It’s just right.”

“Odd tastes.”

“I get that a lot.”

The combatants were back to their starting positions again.

“You know,” Izumi said, taking the chance to relax her numbed arms, “if you happen to have any special moves or ultimate techniques up your sleeve, now might be the high time to use them.”

“Unfortunately, I have used just about every card in my deck by now,” Faalan replied. “Likewise, in case there are any more strange powers or skills you have at your disposal, I’d like to see them sooner rather than later.”

“’Women are full of mysteries’—is what I’d like to say. But unfortunately, I don’t have any limit breaks installed. Even my spiritual roommate is completely useless in situations like this.”

“I certainly hope our foe knows not how to break his limits either,” the man said, tightening the grip on his saber. “For those limits are quite something, as they are.”

That was all the time they were given.

The daemon approached on foot, exhibiting very human composure.

How much of its past identity remained? Did somewhere in that hollow abyss remain a faint recollection what it had been before being cursed, corrupted, and twisted into a perpetually wrathful predator? Or was the past only a skin it wore, another tool by which this foreign, utterly incomprehensible will sought to achieve its goal of sowing indiscriminate death and chaos? Even if it knew the answer, it wouldn’t tell them.

While Izumi hesitated, trying to guess the enemy’s intentions, Faalan answered the challenge and stepped boldly up to meet the enemy. He cleaved upward with astounding speed, aiming to halve the eerie face. The daemon leaned aside and back to evade. The saber’s tip drew a clear line across its chest and neck, severing steely skin and muscle, but it showed no reaction, keeping boldly close. In an immediate retaliation, it swung down its left fist with a fierce growl. Faalan parried the punch, directing it aside with his blade. Tilting its whole frame, the monster pivoted around its left foot, striking repeatedly in rapid succession, first with the right fist, and then again with the left, followed again by right, terrible weight behind each blow. Faalan couldn’t keep up with the berserk assault, but had to open his guard and jump back to avoid taking a hit. Fatigue was getting to the warrior as well. His heel hit a protruding edge on the coarse floor and he tumbled.

Izumi stepped in to cover, interrupting the creature’s deadly combo.

Slashing lightly up at its arm for a distraction, she took a sidestep left and cut diagonally down, cutting the back of the daemon’s knee. It made no move to evade, taking the hit. The beast was momentarily crippled. Izumi reversed the turning motion and stepped back in, cutting deep into its flank. The Amygla sank through the dark flesh, leaving a deep cut from the abdomen to the backside. For any regular foe, a man or a beast, such a wound would have meant certain end.

But the enemy surprised the warriors yet again.

Instead of escaping or redoing its form, as it normally would, the daemon withstood the damage, keeping its attention at the woman. As Izumi passed, following her cut, it turned after her and flung up its right elbow, smacking her in the back of the head.

“Ow!”

Although the Iron Hide shielded her, human heads were not meant to receive such hits.

Izumi stumbled, her sense of balance and direction disrupted. Her vision became clouded by a gray, shapeless mist, where shooting stars mingled. She forced herself to keep moving through the haze by sheer force of will. Her muscles worked by memory and she fixed her posture, turning smoothly around. She cut up without delay, at where she assumed the enemy to be. The daemon evaded with a quick warp to undo the damage, and reappeared to her right. Still blinded but sensing the beast’s oppressive presence on her face like the heat of an intense furnace, Izumi adjusted her aim and cut down to close the gap, retreating a step. But she had long lost control of the flow and adhering to the rigid form learned in martial arts classes was not going to take her far. The daemon parried her straightforward closing move with a backhanded sweep and closed in. Her weapon brushed aside, Izumi’s guard was down. Shaping one of its fingers into a thick, hooked sting, the daemon proceeded to ram it through her gut.

Not even Tauhirn could withstand such a relentless strike. The talon pierced clean through the layer of mana, Izumi’s midriff, and out of the back. Stepping around her, the daemon gripped her side and flung the woman away, as if discarding a played-out chess piece. After a quick flight, Izumi hit the east-side wall some twenty feet away, and fell from there to the floor, every inch of her body assailed by an agony of fatal seriousness.

Though she could barely see, much less breathe, Izumi tried to get up and join back to the fight without delay. She was still alive, and so long as she had consciousness, she couldn’t leave Faalan to fend off such a foe by himself. Not now, when the enemy was just as determined to finish the fight as they were.

Yet, will power alone may only carry one so far.

Though it didn’t seem like any bones were broken, the pain radiating in her side was paralyzing. Her legs wouldn’t respond at all. Several muscles essential to holding her torso upright were completely torn, the rest reflexively cramping. Blood flooded her torn entrails, filling her stomach with a revolting, burning sensation. Izumi’s vision remained covered by a persistent fog, and the blunt, throbbing pain in the back of her head made her feel like vomiting. The floor turned and waved under her. She had at least a concussion if not worse.

There was no denying the facts; her condition didn’t allow her to stand, much less fight. In a matter of minutes, she would pass into unconsciousness and death. She had no other choice but to cancel the enhancements and take a moment to recover.

“Ohrm…” Izumi named the Rune of Restoration, gritted her teeth, and waited.

Immediately, a soothing, clarifying sensation started to spread inside her, easing the pain and relaxing the muscles. The mist started to clear. The bleeding stopped. The wounds began to close, the organs regenerate. It was still early morning, the rune’s potential was close to its peak. It would take only about a minute to restore even such a deadly injury and dispel the curse.

But she also knew this—they didn’t have minutes.

Were there even seconds?

Up ahead, Faalan had engaged the enemy alone, his saber whistling as it sliced air. He had no magic to power him, only his lifelong experience and training, yet barely a faint trace of sweat glittered upon his forehead, as a token of the monumental effort.

Tired as he was, he continued to answer every attack, countered every move, holding the daemon at bay. His sharp gaze allowed nothing to escape his attention. Certainly, songs failed to do justice to his transcended ability, and no words could describe the beauty of his splendid technique. The Silver Saber had undeniably earned his place among the greatest heroes of mankind, more so than several others.

Nevertheless, whether one would name it his merit or a demerit, Faalan was more a human than he was an emiri. It would take a monster to defeat a monster, a machine of flesh polished through a thousand years of warfare, or else one aided by otherwise extraordinary powers. Faalan had lived a long life, for a human, but as a human, his lonely struggle had ever been doomed to end without triumph.

No one can be truly perfect. The minute flaws in his techniques began to accumulate.

The orichalcum coating was peeling off his saber, the blade nicked in several places, slightly bent near the upper third. The aerodynamics of the weapon suffered because of this, causing turbulence and inaccuracy in turns. The balancing was no longer optimal. The sword couldn’t be swung at full force without breaking it, limiting his output. Faalan had to exert continuously more effort to keep up with the daemon’s attacks, draining his stamina, whereas the enemy only added pressure.

The daemon had already adapted to his technique. It knew how to deal with him. Without Izumi’s backup, Faalan had no retreat, no chance to recover, but neither did he have the might to push back. He was locked in a ceaseless exchange of crushing forces, and all he could do was delay the deathblow as far as he could, the cage steadily closing in on him. His knees and thighs burned, his bones creaked, the weight of the daemon’s power seeping through his defenses. His arms were already beyond pain.

Sensing the approaching ending, Faalan removed part of his attention from the fight, turning it the woman in the back. Even as his eyes continued to follow the enemy’s fists and his hands moved without rest, his face tightening over the strain, he parted his lips and spoke.

“Tell them,” he grunted. “Tell my son—that I was no traitor.”

With a light sound, the silver saber snapped.

Breaking through, the daemon plunged its fist through his solar plexus. Its hand changed shape, its claws phasing into long, jagged blades, which it went on to tear up with a furious roar, shredding the warrior’s upper torso to strips. Half of the man’s gallant figure was disintegrated on the spot, turned into a misty hail of blood and viscera that momentarily filled the air, and Faalan was no more.

Through the crimson rain dived then a sheen of metal.

The Amygla’s gleaming blade sank into the daemon’s side, accompanied by a desperate cry of rage and grief.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”

Forcing the sword down and aside, Izumi tore it out of the monster’s flesh. Its musculature critically rent, it was unable to turn to follow her, but the wound was not deadly either. It would take the creature less than two seconds to recover from an injury of that extent and remake its form. But after barely three tenths of a second had passed, Izumi had already turned fully around and swung the elven blade again, higher, slicing clean off the horrifying head of the nightmare.

There, in that time and place, Izumi’s cut finally attained the absolute purity of intent, the unhesitating singularity of purpose, where all others thoughts and feelings were absent, exceeding that deadly creature’s perception and comprehension.

Robbed of its head, the monster collapsed. No corpse would a daemon leave behind, not one claw for a trophy. As it fell, its heavy form broke into grainy dust as black as charcoal, and scattered with a barely audible sound, like a passing sigh. Even this dust soon melted away without a trace, making one question if it had ever been real to begin with.

It was over.

The terror had ended and silence returned to the underground atrium.

But joy, relief, triumph, and all such were far removed from the victor’s mind.

Izumi sank to her knees in the gradually spreading pool of blood. Sobbing weakly without tears, she stared at the earthly remains of the man she had given her all to save. There was nothing she could do for him now, yet she didn’t have the will to get up and leave either. Before the battle, she had been confident she could find another way out and rejoin the others, but such plans felt so distant to her now that they altogether lost meaning, becoming far-fetched and ridiculous.

Wherever could she go from here?

What future did she have left, having failed every last one of her endeavors?

What meaning could there be in going on?

She was empty. So completely, horribly empty.

Spent.

“…?”

Close by, a tiny object gleamed with a silvery light against the crimson surface. Without thinking, Izumi reached for it, finding that it was a pendant. Depicted in the skillfully crafted metal piece was a knightly sword embraced by three pairs of wings. The design was rather girly, perhaps it had been a gift? Maybe the people of this world didn’t wear wedding rings at all, but gave each other adornments of more personal fashion to symbolize their bond and commitment?

Somewhere out there, someone was restlessly waiting for the return of the pendant’s owner.

Izumi cradled the piece in her hands, held it close to her chest, and sat without moving for a very long time, only too well understanding the sorrow awaiting the accessory's giver.

Faint, grinding noise carried into her ears. It wasn’t coming from above, but somewhere below. There was no one else left in the city, nothing to explain the strange observation, but she didn’t care enough to think about it either.

Then, the red-glowing figure of the Divine phantom appeared floating by her.

“Human,” Yubilea timidly spoke, an unusually remorseful look on her face. “Izumi...Something moved in the hall below. I think the door in the pyramid that was closed is now open. Shouldn’t you go see it?”

Izumi said nothing. She still didn’t feel like moving, or doing anything at all, but her sense of duty eventually overpowered her lethargy. Her quest was not over yet. What Faalan had set out to do, she had to see to completion in his stead, no matter how meaningless or tiresome. She slowly got up to her feet, sighed, put away the Amygla, dropped the silver pendant in her pocket, and headed for the stairs.

Following Yubilea’s glow, Izumi passed through the tunnel where the tale of creation had been inscribed long ago, together with the foreboding warning. On the floor still lay Acquiescas’s oil lamp and his tool satchel, awaiting the scholar’s return to work. She passed them without a second look and stepped into the cavern, on the far side of which the dark, cosmic shape of the pyramid stood nestled by the mountain roots.

Izumi walked along the ancient road and climbed up the stairs to the entrance without much hurry. No shadows appeared to block her path. She marched unhindered into the brightly lit corridor and deeper into the strange building.

As Yubilea had reported, the sturdy metal gate which had previously blocked the way had now pulled aside on its own. When Izumi was younger—no, even just a week ago—the opportunity to explore ancient temples and tombs, like the characters in all those adventurous movies and video games, would have made her jump and sing out of excitement. Now, she felt no different from passing down the aisle of a supermarket, not bothering to give another look to the timeless patterns running along the walls. History had lost its glamour in her eyes, together with the future.

So she thought. But the further Izumi passed, the more the true extent of this discovery’s strangeness started to get to her, making her contort her brows with confusion and unease.

At the end of the lengthy corridor, the adventurer stepped out in a tall, rectangular room, where she halted and looked around.

It didn’t look like a tomb.

Aesthetically, the space gave off more the peculiar impression of a hotel lobby. The walls were of exquisitely polished marble, light gray in color, with lines of turquoise, gold, and black running across. Two wide pillars of smooth, black stone held up the ceiling, where bright, colorless lamps shone, leaving nothing underneath in shade. Beneath the pillars were rows of chairs. Not any crude wood stools, but ones elegantly veiled in clean black leather, with slim arms and legs of shining silver.

Everything about the place looked modern and new, and certainly like nothing one could expect to find in a ruin sealed thousands of years ago. Izumi gave Yubilea a confused look, which the spirit answer with a no less clueless shrug and a shake of her head. In spite of how long she had existed, the Divine evidently had never seen such a place before, nor had any idea what it was meant to be.

The hallway continued across the room, to areas yet deeper in. The visitors wouldn’t immediately proceed, however. To her astonishment, Izumi suddenly realized they weren’t alone in the room.

Someone sat on one of the chairs in the back row, facing away from the visitors.

Dressed in simple black, not moving at all, Izumi’s mind had initially dismissed the person as mere part of the decor. After all, it was by all means inconceivable that anyone might still live here, where no soul had visited for so long.

And yet, though it clearly shouldn’t have been possible, there was a person, a man.

A human male, by the looks of him, not an elf or another fantastic creature.

That man now stood up and walked around the line of stairs, coming to face Izumi in the middle of the room, and there he stopped. He was older, perhaps in his fifties or sixties, a slim, tall gentleman with short, gray hair, light gray eyes, and a friendly, dignified face, clean shaven. He was dressed in a long, black overcoat, similar to a Catholic priest’s cassock, black trousers, and matching leather shoes, with not a speck of dust on him. To her confusion, Izumi noted that the man looked a bit like Doctor Who.

“Welcome,” the man greeted Izumi in clear, perfectly understandable Common Speech. “I am glad you could make it, Izumi. I have been waiting, for a very long time.”

Somehow, the man knew Izumi’s name too. Though she was quite certain she had never met anyone like him in her life, on Ortho or elsewhere. Stunned, she stared back at the stranger, struggling to recall the use of words. The apathy in which the earlier events had sunk her helped Izumi get over her astonishment soon enough, and she responded with a twisted frown.

“You are…?”

Who or whatever he was, she was certain nothing could shake her anymore.

But in this jaded assumption, Izumi was somewhat mistaken once again.

A polite smile on his face, a peculiar light shining in his eyes, the man courteously introduced himself.

“I am Geltsemanhe. The God of Darkness.”