A thick Magitech lock as large as Angel hung between the doors. It would have been significantly more effective had it not been split down the middle, parted perfectly as if someone were dissecting it.

“Well, someone was definitely here before us,” Lilian said.

“Couldn’t tell,” Angel said with a grunt, shifting one of the pieces of the lock back with his mechanical arm to get a better look inside it. “This was reinforced with runes. Whatever cut this was very dangerous.”

“Should we keep going?” Alison asked. “What if this is an ambush?”

“Then, after all the work they’ve gone through to get us here, they probably deserve to get it off,” Angel replied. “I find it hard to believe some random people stumbled across this. That means the only ones here are going to either be the Reawakening or the third party that has been messing with us this whole time.”

“But what are the chances Reave beat us here?” Lilian asked. “We don’t even think he has a working Key.”

“I don’t think it’s Reave,” Angel said. “Reave doesn’t strike me as the type to hold back, and this cut was very precise. Destroying only the lock without damaging the door or anything else doesn’t strike me like him. Then again, you know him better than I do. What do you think?”

“You’re right,” Lilian admitted. “So it’s the third party, then?”

“Most likely,” Angel said with a grim nod. “Get ready for a fight. We’re going to go meet them.”

Lilian readied her sword and Alison raised her arms. Angel pushed on the doors with a grunt. Steam hissed from his arm as pistons chugged in it, putting out the maximum amount of strength that he had to give.

Slowly, one of the doors ground open. Angel paused once it was just a crack and squinted, trying to see into whatever lay beyond. All that met him was darkness. With no other option, he leaned into the door once more and shoved it open.

A light blinked on in the distance. Another followed it. With a series of clicks, a pathway illuminated itself before them. It descended into the ground in a straight line, coming to a stop before an enormous, circular platform with seven chairs, all facing away from them. The chairs were curved at the top, blocking any view of them from above. Everything else was pitch black. Even Angel’s eyepiece failed to pick anything up within it.

“Should I blow it up?” Alison whispered.

“I was strongly considering it,” Angel replied in the same tone. “But this is also the Vault. This could be how we can bring back Old World Magic. That also means that there’s probably some very, very dangerous tech here. Stuff we don’t want to blow up if we can avoid it, since it might take us with it.”

Alison gave him a minute nod. Lilian took the lead, keeping her sword raised before her as the three headed into the darkness. The lights faded as they walked past them. Angel knelt as they walked, sweeping a hand through the darkness on the other side of the lights. It passed through thin air.

“Don’t step off the path,” Angel suggested.

They continued down the path. Angel kept waiting for the doors to slam shut behind them, but they never did. The three of them got to the edge of the lit platform. Angel cleared his throat. “Hello?”

There was no response.

“Maybe whoever got here first fell off the bridge?” Alison whispered.

“Or they messed with something they shouldn’t have,” Angel said. A spell clicked into his arm and he slowly approached the chairs, scanning the ground with his eyepiece. Not even a single trace of magic showed up.

He reached the first chair and spun it around with his foot, ready to fire a spell off at a moments notice. The chair was empty. Angel’s heart thumped in his chest and he approached the next chair. He raised his foot and spun it around.

It moved slower than the other chair, but by the time Angel realized that, it was too late. A familiar man sat in the chair, leaning his chin in his palm. Long white hair framed his face, hanging low past his shoulders.

“Hello, Angel,” Soul said, a grin stretching across his leathery face. “It’s been a while.”

Angel shot a bolt of lightning into his face. It wasn’t entirely intentional – he was so surprised that the spell slipped loose almost of its own accord, but it still struck Soul across the chin and knocked his head back hard against the metal chair.

Lilian’s sword wavered and her eyes went wide. “Soul?”

Alison looked from Angel to Lilian. Soul brushed himself off with a sigh. “Not the greeting I was expecting.”

“I killed you,” Angel said, taking a step back. “This is impossible. I saw your body. You’re dead.”

“Oh, you sure did,” Soul said with a chuckle. “Got me good. Had no idea you were going to do it, either. Completely took me by surprise. I really do have to applaud you for that one. I’d been working with that body for a while, so imagine how peeved I was when you trapped it.”

Lilian’s grip tightened around her sword and she raised it again. “I saw your body too, Soul. How are you alive? Who are you, really? Why did you leave the Reawakening when everything was falling apart? You could have stopped our Magitech from falling apart. You could have kept all of this from happening.”

“That’s a lot of questions, Lilian,” Soul said. Angel shot him with another lightning bolt. The spell slammed his head into the back of the chair with a loud crack. Soul swore.

“Would you stop that?”

“How are you resisting my magic?” Angel demanded. “Two direct hits from a lightning bolt should have at least phased you.”

Soul sighed. “You’re making it very difficult to speak. Use that artifact of yours on me, boy.”

Angel narrowed his eyes and activated his eyepiece.

Race: Human, Magitech

Name: Soul

Level 9112

Status: Healthy

Information accuracy: 82%

Strength: 1522

Intelligence: 9224

Nimbleness: 2268

Toughness: 5210

Rating: Impossible

Weak point(s): None

Element(s): None

The blood ran out of Angel’s face. The System was flawed and often inaccurate, and he knew better than anyone that its readings weren’t a real indicator of strength. But there was a difference between Reave and his triple digit number and Soul with a four digit one.

“How?” Angel asked, his mind racing. The path back to the doors was unlit, but if he shot a lightning bolt down the cavern, it should light it up for long enough for them to escape and formulate an actual plan.

“Didn’t you think it strange?” Soul asked. “All the other Star Fragments possess Old World Magic, but not once while we were traveling did you see mine do anything? You didn’t know I had one at the time, of course. But you do now. The Reawakening’s names all have meaning, as I’m sure you’ve gathered. What do you think my power is, Angel?”

“You’re immortal?” Angel guessed, trying to buy more time to think. He didn’t think for a second that Soul was actually interested in chatting. The man had to be playing at something else, but Angel’s brain was shorting out.

“Close,” Soul said. “I simply have no need for a corporeal form. So, to answer your earlier question, I didn’t survive. You killed that body, but I had another. They aren’t so hard to come by, if you have the proper resources.”

“Then why?” Lilian demanded. “If you didn’t die, why didn’t you come back to the Reawakening? You must have known how bad things were getting, and you were there while I was out on missions that I thought were going to help people. At least, some small part of me still believed that, even if I’d realized it was no longer true. We were supposed to bring back Old World Magic to help the Barren, but the Reawakening is destroying it!”

Soul clicked his tongue in disappointment. “I am sorry, Lilian. You were always a passionate one. It’s why I had to make sure you were away from base as much as possible. I couldn’t get you getting too involved. But you’re very sorely mistaken about one thing.”

“Oh? And what is that?” Lilian asked, her knuckles turning white around the hilt of her dented sword.

“I didn’t join the Reawakening to bring back Old World Magic,” Soul said. “I joined it to make sure it stayed gone forever.”