Kingsman bellowed as he strode confidently into the room, “I should have known I’d have traitors in my midst. Leaving you two alive was a mistake I will not make twice.”

The kingsman was flanked on both sides by two more guards, who kept pace with him rather than charging forward, and even the two guards in active combat, stepped back slightly to prevent interfering with this powerful warrior’s quarry.

He didn’t hold the staff in his hands, but Demon could see it tied to his back with two thin straps, and he felt drawn to retrieve it in a way he had never experienced before. It took a force of willpower to prevent himself from charging straight for it, even knowing full well there were six guards ready to stop him at a moment’s notice.

“Wait!” Demon stalled, holding up a hand and looking between Kingsman and Shay, hoping an idea would come to him.

“No,” was all he heard in return before a large wave of fire swept directly at the four fighters in the center. Shay, Tres, and Demon all dove out of the way, only mildly singed, but Dos was toast. He screamed as his leathers burst into flame and the acrid scent of burning feathers and scaly skin rose into the air, making Demon cough.

That amount of power made Demon shake violently in fear. He couldn’t win in a physical contest against this man, but he even had that kind of strength? It was no wonder Mana Blade was worth almost nothing against him. He ran for the corner of the room as fast as he could, and dived behind a pillar even as the Kingsman laughed.

“So you recognize how weak you are now? I don’t understand the cruel joke of this world that a pathetic, untalented piece of trash like you was able to kill my king, but I will repay this world ten-fold. I will kill every last person that refuses to succumb to my will, and then I will rise to the next plane and I will continue to rise until I can get my vengeance on the despicable monsters that set up these Trials…”

Demon peeked out from around a pillar, Shadow Stalk active at low mana consumption as all eyes turned to see the Kingsman’s guards entering combat with three lightly armored and worse armed birdmen.

“This is for all the friends you killed, you asshole!” Shouted one of the enraged birdmen that he had encountered with Bazy. Demon saw Shovelknight land a rather impressive blow on one of the guards, but another began to lay into him, and his poor weapon was clearly not going to last long.

Demon moved closer toward Kingsman even as he saw Shay finishing a fight with Tres and thanked the Trials that these birdmen made piss-poor warriors.

Unfortunately, that was true even for the three on his side, and he grimaced as he watched them falling back. Their momentary distraction may have saved his life, but Demon hoped it wouldn’t cost them theirs.

Seeing Kingsman targeting the taller birdman, Merek, Demon picked up his speed. He lunged at Kingsman’s back and slashed out viciously, Mana Blade flying ahead to draw his attention.

The attack didn’t cause any noticeable amount of damage, but Demon saw the staff’s binding tear before it went clattering to the ground several feet away.

“Boy!” Kingsman shouted, turning stoically to where Demon rebounded from his latest attack. “Your arrogance will be the death of you. Do you not even know what these Trials are?” He moved forward calmly, closing the distance to Demon with surprising speed.

Kingsman raised his sword, but before he could target Demon he pivoted to deflect a strike from Shay, knocking the Darkest Night several feet backwards in the process. “I am Geralt, of the Maledite. I was born into the Trials, raised to serve King Arlon as he conquered his first plane. The gods may have claimed his life with you as their tool, but even the strongest chisel breaks.”

With that he planted his feet, and fissures on the ground knocked Demon from his defensive stance. As Demon struggled to right himself in time for the powerful blow, he felt a wave of power as an arrow shot forth across the room over his head, clashing effectively into Kingsman’s raised weapon. Two more followed, killing two of the guards at the back of the room.

Demon refocused on Kingsman, working to get his footing under control so he could prepare for another attack even as Shay shouted for the newly arrived archers to avoid targeting the unarmored birdmen.

An arrow stuck out from the Kingsman’s shoulder joint, and the man looked angry that anything had damaged him at all. He moved to resume his attack on Demon, but a blur stepped between them as Torysen appeared, glowing great-sword in hand.

Torysen didn’t wait for an attack to defend against, but instead raised stone roots from the fissures that Geralt had made around himself. These roots gripped tightly, holding him in place, and then Torysen brought forth the greatsword, hoping to catch Geralt off balance.

Despite his uneven stance, Geralt hunkered down and managed to turn the direct assault. He showed almost no interest in the arrows that were loosed in his direction every few seconds, but instead matched Torysen’s assault relentlessly.

Shay moved up from the side again, launching a powerful blast of force energy and then chopping hard at a joint in Geralt’s plate armor from behind. Both landed, and the distraction from the force blast gave Torysen the opportunity to land a blow on Geralt’s upper arm, and her magically enhanced weapon seemed to do minor, but definite damage.

Geralt roared, and ripped his legs free of their restraints. With incredible speed, he moved from his central position in the room toward the side by a pillar, forcing the archers to move to find a location they could shoot from which wouldn’t harm one of their allies.

Demon, Shay, and Torysen advanced, each of them moving in to attack in a sequence that would have been impossible to defend against for any ordinary swordsman. Geralt somehow managed it, and only let the odd blow land against him.

Recognizing the struggle of trying to maintain a direct assault against such a powerful defender, Demon put away his blades and retrieved the staff from the ground. There’s another spell I haven’t used in this yet. It’s gotta do something useful, he considered urgently.

He probed deeply with Mana Manipulation, and felt at a loss in front of the raw power of the staff. He shouldn’t even be able to wield the item, he remembered. And certainly he still couldn’t wield it properly, but if he could just convince it to unleash whatever strange, unknown power lurked in it…

Torysen came in heavily with another assault, casting a strange spell as she did so that Demon could not identify by more than a surge of mana. But when Geralt deflected a particularly strong blow, she was repelled. Geralt stepped forward after her and struck hard and fast, closing in on landing a direct hit against Tory with every swing. He would have shattered her defense completely, but an almost impossible arrow came in hard over Tory’s shoulder, rending a small opening in his armor.

In a flash, Tory moved behind him during the distraction just as a hail of arrows bombarded him. He roared and the remaining arrows in the air scattered away from him from the force of it, and then he redoubled his efforts to crush Tory with imposing force, even while resisting the less effective strikes of Shay on his flank.

Watching her lose steam again, Demon felt the urgency to intervene and unleashed all of the mana he had been pooling into the last unknown recess of his staff.

Similar to the black swirling energy, a wave was unleashed, but it was tighter, denser than he had seen before, and most notably an emerald green. The energy seemed to dig into the wounds Torysen had made, ripping into Geralt’s body. A signal from the staff told Demon that it was time to pull back on the spell, but rather than pulling the energy back toward himself, he sent it to Tory.

She shouted as the energy struck her, but unlike the vicious digging it had done against Geralt, this seemed to surround and fill her. Her heavy breathing eased, and her eyes seemed to simultaneously widen and clear. Where she had been backing down from the fight, her efforts now redoubled, even as Geralt’s defense slowed.

“This ends now!” She urged, as her blade made direct contact with the center of his chest, and he stumbled backwards. Shay followed her blow with several weaker attacks of his own, though only Tory’s managed to pierce his armor and send him stumbling.

Geralt backed up against the wall, sunken and glowering at them all, and Demon saw the buildup of mana within his arms. He’d make one last desperate attack, then. Rather than fleeing, Demon ran straight up into the heat of the fight, and as Tory thrust her blade through Geralt’s cracked chest piece, Demon unleashed every bit of energy he could force through the staff. The blade barely pierced his skin before Tory was blown to the ground from the tremendous energy Geralt emanated, but that small opening was deep enough for the strange spell Demon cast to break into his body.

He felt the same feeling he had when consuming the last bit of the Darkest Night corpse from the campsite. The powerful, burning throes of mana, and then more chaotic, disorienting energy of Soul Steal.

“Soul Steal. Though I cannot say that I never believed my life would end to that strange ability, I did not believe I would end up within the soul of a child who knows nothing about the Trials and can hardly form a simple spell,” Geralt mused, as he paced before Mason within a deep, strange space buried somewhere in his chest or his mind.

Geralt seemed comfortable here, familiar with the springs of light and energy that Mason could barely make out. In fact, the older man moved with a focus in this place, touching invisible things and demonstrating his control. Mason could do no more than kneel on both knees, bound by invisible ropes.

“Speak,” Geralt demanded, snapping an invisible cord and freeing Mason’s mouth.

“What… is this place?” was all he could manage.

“I should have said to speak with some intelligence. You ripped the soul from my body and yet you lack even the comprehension of the most basic premise of what is happening now? This is your soul,” Geralt’s eyes scanned in the distance, “Mason Nevels of Earth. Young Mason. Weak, young Mason. How short lived your race truly is. You’ve burned up most of your life already, though I can see you’ve stolen life from some rodents to try and make up for that.

“You’re pathetic. Your poor comprehension of mana isn’t even enough to convert the life you’ve stolen into something you can use. Your body is frail. Your mind is empty. Your soul is bound.”

The man grew silent, then looked at Mason’s spiritual self in this strange place, chained and helpless. A quiet rage burned for a few moments, and then the man stormed forward, “You did not have the strength to even approach my king!” he roared, moving to strike.

His attack fizzled as it struck a barrier, inches from where Mason was chained. “And yet you’re defended. It seems you have luck, if nothing else. Reveal yourself, Protector!”

An obsidian black man appeared right where the attack had fizzled, standing still as if he had been there all along. “I am Mowrytal of the Darkest Night, Geralt of the Maledite. To watch you fight was humbling. I would not have been able to stand against you, not if my sister Torysen required help to best you. But I am strong in here. This boy’s body is filled with my mana, was changed by it. That has made this a home to me. And through him, I will help my people, so you shall not harm him.”