Archon Vasely always wanted to be revered as a wise and benevolent ruler. Like one of the ancient philosopher kings, dedicated to justice and equality and prosperity. In that, he shared a dream with Nony of Velassa. Long ago they had spent many a day drinking and debating the optimal way to achieve their utopia. Not so much, as of late.

Hovering over the panorama of his dying city, he conceded Nony may have been right.

What that boy Leones said had struck close to Vasely’s heart. All of this had occurred right beneath his nose. The wise, all-hearing god would not leave his imprint on mankind’s collective consciousness as a beloved leader ushering in a golden age. He had suffered the worst defeat since Tenlas and the Fall of Arostara. Worse, even.

The Goetia had learned their lesson.

Encompassing the entire thirty square miles of Odena and extending above and below the earth, the tesseract was as flawless as one expected from Astaroth’s work. It vibrated on a frequency Vasely had never seen before. Since its formation the Archon had dedicated most of his time studying its intricacies, but he doubted more than a handful of people within the Civilized Lands could analyze even its conceptual foundation.

The only hope now lay in all of the Archons gathering for the first time in centuries. Such a feat was next to impossible in modern times, and they would never agree to set foot in an unknown domain like the tesseract. Too many cowards in this generation of the mortal pantheon. They would only care when their own lands were threatened.

Thousands of disparate screams reached him from his perch miles above the city. Glass shattering, demons chittering, babies crying. Filtering through the noise revealed nothing new.

Vasely flew down to the establishment known as Amelie in Yellow. Citizens pointed and shouted when they noticed his descent among them. He muted their pleas as he stepped into the building. He could not afford to focus on any individual plights. Twenty people would perish in the time it took to save one.

Discordant vibrations lingered in the area, traces of the proto-tesseract. The Ansteri boy had unraveled this construct, but the barrier around Odena existed on a completely different level. Perhaps he may be the key, but Vasely was unwilling to trust any of Goetia's minions. The Archon had thought he had more time to come to a decision before relying on the boy.

Astaroth had calculated everything to perfection.

Vasely floated up to the second floor. Something there called to him.

A mural of a golden skull surrounded by runes.

He traced each of the symbols with the tip of his finger, straining to decipher their meaning. Over a century ago he had studied some of the incomplete lexicons purported to translate the demonic language. Since then he had grown lax with his studies, favoring new avenues of knowledge instead of reinforcing old ones.

All of them had grown so complacent over the years.

What little he did understand concerned him. The mural was some sort of anchor, meant to work in conjunction with the tesseract to overwrite physical law. The Increate’s workings could not be destroyed but they could be mixed, like an artist blending paints. The domain within a tesseract existed not in the Physical Realm or Desolada, but in a purgatory between the two. As the bastard child of different realities, it combined the laws and possibilities of both.

Vasely thought he knew what Astaroth intended.

An unfathomable blasphemy. Melding the two worlds into a pocket dimension was one thing. But Increate only knew how many of these had been distributed throughout the city. Each of them the site of their own separate tesseract, depositories of karma and bloodshed.

Together they could integrate his city into Desolada, his citizens made slaves in a foreign universe. Their minds and souls trapped, perhaps forever, divorced from their incongruent physical bodies. And in reverse Odena would be a portal back to the Physical Realm, an impenetrable stronghold from which to conquer the Civilized Lands.

An unprecedented disaster. Potentially the end of mankind’s empire. If only it ended there.

None of the Goetia had ever descended to Savra in recorded history. Perhaps in one of the ancient cataclysms thousands or millions of years ago. Their existence defied the fundamental nature of the Physical Realm. It would be like plunging fire into water. Or darkness being pushed into the sunlight. But perhaps, in the steam or in the shadows, Astaroth could find a way to step into the land of mortals.

No time to waste. Go to the Ansteri boy and force him to help. Brother Augur would be a problem, but if they worked together, a solution would still be possible. Vasely might not be remembered as a philosopher king, but perhaps he could stop his home from being the epicenter of the universe collapsing.

Vasely whispered and the roof of Amelie in Yellow disintegrated into a million splinters. His speed tore the air around him as he shot off in the direction of the Gardens.

A tempest of energy exploded out from the direction of the Amphitheater. The Archon stopped, torn between the nearby Gardens and investigating the source of that disruption.

The Ansteri boy remained a priority. Before Vasely could take off, he sensed smaller storms of power erupt all over the city. Amelie in Yellow was one of dozens, all vibrating to the same cosmic rhythm, spaced out in perfect intervals to form a giant sigil throughout the city. The Heretic Star, three orbs clustered around each of its five points, bisected on both sides by sphere-tipped lines.

In the very center of the pentagram lay the Gardens. Geometrically it would be the perfect place for Astaroth to manifest. Vasely resumed his journey towards Leones; the energy near the Amphitheater started to move in that direction as well.

Whatever was capable of emitting that tremendous aura was a city-level threat. Something precious to the Goetia, fielded on rare occasions. Such a being attracted the Archons like moths to a bonfire, and if they eliminated it, the blow to its master would turn the tides of battle for years. Decades, even.

It could not be allowed to reach the Gardens.

Vasely closed his eyes and whispered, dispersing sound in the direction of the Amphitheater. The returning vibrations registered to his ears and his mind translated it into an image. A humanoid figure. As it floated over the city streets, it held its six arms aloft, many-jointed fingers twisting into complex shapes reminiscent of runes.

All mortals that witnessed its passage committed suicide. Those with weapons jammed them into their own vital organs. Those without bashed their heads into walls or the ground until they stopped moving. Lovers strangled each other. A woman watching from a third-story balcony climbed onto the railing and leaned forward.

A General.

It watched as the Archon plummeted towards it. The demon gleamed as if made of pure gold. Its eyes were a pair of white runes painted onto its face, together translating roughly to ‘Lost Moment.’ It lifted its arms in greeting, fingers tying themselves into combinations of blasphemous runes.

His mother’s face loomed enormous over him as she cooed a gentle lullaby. He rocked side to side. Hunger, confusion, annoyance evaporated as the tune washed over him. Such a beautiful sound. His eyes closed.

Vasely shook his head. A torrent of wind blasted into the demon, carried it high into the sky. The Archon manipulated the current, carrying the General high enough that it nearly vanished, a speck in the distance. Adjacent clouds rippled when Lost Moment collided with the barrier of the tesseract at the speed of sound. It disintegrated. Wind scattered its shreds far and wide.

Energy surged to Vasely’s left. The woman who had leapt from the balcony was no longer a woman. The General came to its feet in the exact spot where her corpse had landed. Its body shook in silent laughter, all six hands pointing at the Archon.

Panic. Screaming. His family tent lay in ruin around him, furniture scattered, loose pages torn from books floating through the air. The desert sun flared high above him, its searing light revealing what he had done. No, this was not his fault. He looked towards the distant dune where his mother lay, unmoving, neck twisted at an unnatural angle. The wind had spoken to him. All he had done was say something back.

Vasely bit his tongue. Pain brought him back to reality. Hot blood like copper in his mouth. He exhaled and his breath tossed the General backwards, through a brick building and the one behind it.

Behind him, Lost Moment stood in place of a man who had sawed halfway through his own neck with a dagger. The hands of its upper arms covered its mouth, shoulders bouncing up and down. The middle arms clapped. The bottom ones pointed before resuming their frenzied movements.

When the last breath left Hariza’s body, Vasely captured it in the palm of his hand. She would never move again. She would never smile or slap his arm or nudge him whenever she noticed a baby. Hariza had always wanted children, but Archons were incapable of producing life. Someone like her should have had a legendary brood, unruly boys and surly girls tamed under her iron will. She spent her life with him instead, suppressing her maternal spark, until she went grey and barren and he remained the same as ever. He stole her life for a few selfish decades of personal joy.

He released her last breath, letting it flow back into nature.

Vasely screamed. Windows within a mile shattered. Buildings collapsed. Bodies flew like trash in every direction. Lost Moment perished in the furious outburst.

A surge of energy, not far off from the Garden. The Archon set off in pursuit, arriving in time to watch Lost Moment climb to its feet once more. A horizontal crease split the bottom half of the demon’s head. A mouth opened, rows of teeth like ivory, and it emitted the most horrible laugh he had ever heard.

Vasely silenced everything around him. Reached deep into his soul, to the heart of his connection with the wind around him. An updraft of warm currents rose to shear against cold, dense air above, forming a spinning column as they competed against each other. He had spent long hours observing thunderstorms, learning the ways of the wind at their most chaotic. Calling upon those memories, he manipulated the vortex, linking it with a cloud above, forcing the wild mass of wind into a funnel.

A cyclone descended from the heavens, touched base right behind the General. The Archon’s laughter joined in with the demon’s amused croaking. Its fingers weaved complex patterns.

Screams. Dead faces. Accusatory glances. Broken promises. Failure after failure after failure over the centuries.

Debris swirled through the air. The tornado tore the world apart as it approached. It gathered the demon in its grip, sucked it into a rotating mass of wind and dust, tore it apart at hundreds of miles per hour of rotating force.

Vasely was still laughing when the currents swallowed him as well, flung him at a nearby building. How easily he could have manipulated the air around him, to dwell untouched within this all-consuming storm.

Pointless.

He hit a brick wall.

The cyclone continued along the street, an avatar of destruction devouring the city. It headed east, away from the Gardens.

The shattered mess of the Archon’s corpse reformed into a golden humanoid, three arms sprouting from either side.