Cassian looked up into the night sky and the sister moons of Daul and Roel looked down at him. Roel adopted her crescent form while the full Daul moon proudly shone its dim light over the world below. It was as if the sky itself was winking at him, promising to keep his secret safe.

It wouldn't have to for much longer. Cassian placed a hand over his chest, right over where his heart was, if it still existed. He wasn't quite sure if it did. Though his chest still throbbed with the steady beat of what felt like a pulse, it was possible that his body just didn't understand that it had no need to continue. With no need for food, water, or air, Cassian assumed that he no longer needed blood to be pumped through his body. Was it possible that his heart was pumping something else?

Whatever the case, the false heartbeat drew a quiet sense of comfort. It assured him that he was still human, as were his people. It assured him that he should belief in himself, and in his own strength.

More than once, he had grown unsure of his plans, going over them again and again until they invaded his sleep, either by plaguing him with an unshakeable insomnia or by infecting his dreams with constant scenes of carnage and destruction. But no matter how long he thought, he knew that he would never come up with a different solution.

He knew what he had to do and when he would act. One month. In the context of his full plan, one month was not a lot of time. Even so, it still felt like too long.

Cassian was confident in his strength, and with how many times he'd debated with himself, it was difficult not to hold confidence in his plans, but what he wasn't confident in was his will.

Cassian thought of himself as being kind and selfless, but genuinely hoped that it was just a complete lack of modesty that made him think that way. Every fibre of his being screamed against the plans that haunted his every step, begging him to reconsider, telling him that he would be responsible for the deaths of millions, and that was only if his plan worked.

Cassian was a man planning genocide. He refused to downplay his intentions as anything different. If he was to execute his plan, he needed it to be done with the knowledge that the alternative of giving up was simply so much worse. It was the only way he could justify doing it.

He continued to stare up into the sky, knowing if there was anything that could judge him, it would be found up there, in the divinity of the night. If there was truly any justice in the world, he knew he would be struck down then and there.

Cassian waited for as long as he could, until he simply decided that no matter how long he waited, the only thing that would kill him up on the pillar he sat on was old age.

There was a perverse side of him that saw the lack of any holy intervention as approval from the Gods, but he brushed the thought aside as either desperate thinking or the effects of his solitary life finally driving him insane.

Below him, the snarl of an Umbra drew his attention. A Shadow Cat hissed as it readied itself for another attempt to pounce at him. Finding the tallest tree that could support its gargantuan weight, it sprinted up its length to launch itself into the air, displaying a deft nimbleness that seemed almost impossible for its size.

Cassian lazily lifted his hand, raising up the platform of earth he sat on a few meters higher with his magic. The Umbra, being a creature of magic but not quite understanding it, seemed to yowl in frustration as its seemingly defenseless prey slipped out of its grasp.

As it fell, it scrambled to find a foothold against the tall unnatural pillar of earth that Cassian had carved out with his magic. When it couldn't find a place to cling onto the smooth artificial surface, it twisted gracefully, positioning itself in a way that allowed it to push off the surface of the pillar, landing elegantly on the earth below.

The Shadow Cat gave him a disdainful look before leaving, as if shaming him for wasting its time.

Cassian tried to watch it leave, but after a few steps into the forest, his eyes quickly lost it, the Shadow Cat's dark coat blending it into the cover of the night. But he hadn’t been following it with his eyes. The tremors of its footfalls vibrated softly through the ground travelling imperceptibly up the pillar of earth as it stalked away. Cassian followed its travel with his fingers.

Welcoming any distraction from his thoughts, Cassian pushed his magic into the earth below him, expanding his range of influence so he could follow the wild creature further into the forest.

As his essence combined with the earth below, his body fused along with it. The first time he had become one with his magic, he had panicked. Now, with a deep understanding that he was becoming the earth itself, not sinking into it, it provided him an easy sense of calm.

As his body fell deeper into the earth, he left his head out. Though he no longer needed air, food, or water, he still enjoyed the luxury of sight. Though his senses were expanded, allowing him to follow not only the Shadow Cat as it searched for an easier source of prey, but also every single living creature in his vicinity, he doubted he would ever give up the simple beauty of looking at the world through his eyes..

Looking up, the sister moons continued to wink mischievously at him.

"Are you mocking me, or encouraging me?" he asked aloud.

There was no reply.

"There's no other way," he insisted.

There was no reply.

Cassian frowned. It would be so easy to convince himself that he was insane, to absolve himself of what he was about to do.

"I could just kill the inventor," Cassian said. "He's a genius. If I kill him and everyone who he's shared his ideas with, his invention might not exist for another hundred years."

Making it no longer his problem. But this was a false solution he had proposed to himself many times before.

He allowed himself to sink into the earth, becoming a part of the world's crust. He allowed himself to appreciate the moment of momentary shock, when his body adjusted to the truth of how insignificant he truly was, regardless of the weight of responsibility that he had chosen to carry.

Cassian shifted, shooting his body through the earth at high speed, traversing the Dead Zone and casually passing the walls into Astranta. Far above him, the earth trembled with the footsteps and the sleeping breaths of hundreds of thousands of citizens, most of them bladeless, three hundred and forty two of them being Soulblades. Though the senses threatened to overwhelm his mind, he tried his best to ignore the tremors of the bladeless and the faint magical pulses of his fellow Soulblades.

He dove deeper and deeper into the earth, letting the signs of life fade above him.

Far below the castle of Astranta, about a hundred kilometers away, his old childhood home, was a small pocket within the earth. No tunnels led to it, but it was filled with books, stolen and placed there over the years of pilfering the Castle's hidden library. His own little treasure trove of information.

Cassian ignored that too, turning instead to a small town closer to the outskirts of the kingdom. He didn't know the name of the town, or if it had one, but that didn't matter.

The inventor slept in his workshop, a rare occurrence for the man, not in the location but the fact that he was sleeping at all.

The man had an audience with an Armoury Quartermaster in the next month, and he had been obsessively going over his invention, making sure it would work on the big day.

Cassian knew that he could rise up out of the earth and snap his neck. He could create a sinkhole to swallow him up, along with his house, destroying the ugly weapons inside.

But he didn't.

Killing the inventor wasn't even a temporary solution, with there being no immediate problem. In its current state, the "rifle" that he invented wouldn't serve a purpose in the world. With it only being lethal within ranges of two hundred meters, only a select few Soulblades with small ranges of magic would be affected by the use of this weapon.

The problem was that once the idea what Soulblades could be directly controlled by the bladeless took root, it would continue to grow. Every scientific mind across all the Kingdoms would unite to try and create a way for the regular bladeless to be able to better kill a Soulblade.

It was only a matter of time before they created better shackles for them too.

Cassian shuddered.

Cassian slept, though he kept his focus on the tremors of the inventor above him. As soon as he woke, Cassian would know. He wouldn’t move for another month, but he would be ready.