My body collapsed against Alis. Her slender frame was strong enough to hold me up. A look of fear spread over her freckled face.

The painful static continued to echo around the inside of my skull, getting louder and harsher the longer it continued.

Everything grew fuzzy, faint, blurring into a mass of dull grey. Even Alis’ pretty face and her shockingly bright fiery red hair blurred into the dull grey of the expansive room I was in.

In the end, I could only feel the warmth from Alis, feel her strength as she held up my limp body. But even those sensations faded away into a fuzzy static. As those sensations turned fuzzy, the pain screaming in my head muffled itself into nothingness. A nothingness which reminded me of the void of Alis’ isolation realm.

Unlike that isolation realm, where I felt nothing other than Celameth. Here I could sense a strange barrier in front of me.

Even though I could sense the barrier was there. I was unable to even guess at what lay beyond it.

As I felt out this strange barrier, I came to a realisation that I was pretty sure about. This barrier was not one to stop me from progressing onwards. If anything, it was more of an incompatibility issue. Like using an older software on a newer computer, sometimes required things to be tweaked to work correctly.

At the moment, I was not sure if I was the newer computer, or the older software.

It really didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that something beyond the barrier had managed to pull me this far, and I was sure it wasn’t that consuming void. That screaming static had none of the hunger and desperation the void held.

Still, I felt drawn to that place beyond the barrier.

Thinking back about the software analogy, I guessed that this was related to me. So I pushed through the barrier.

Towering over all, dominating everything else, was a gigantic golden statue of Aggard. She was sitting serenely, in her spread open hands was a closed, and locked, heavily bejeweled ornate book.

Flowing from this statue was a sense of power and peace, which I had not felt since Aggard died. Occasionally, I would sense something similar from Alis. As that power flowed through me, my wounded heart burst into pain once more. It took all my might to resist breaking down and crying right here.

A hand grabbed my shoulder.

Without thinking, I reacted, grabbing the hand, twisting them over my shoulder. Forming an axe, I brought it down, stopping just as the blade touched the bare Mediterranean honey skin of the woman’s throat.

A roar of anger burst from elsewhere and a pretty boy spearman, with the same honeyed skin, wearing impractical, ornate, flowing white toga-like garb charged at me.

Though he was using divinity to power their charge, I felt the speed he was moving was far too slow. In our morning duels, both Alis and myself moved far faster, with more intensity, and with far less divine wastage.

In fact, he had been wasting his divine power all the time I had been here.

Bursting up from my kneeled position, I shot towards him. My bare hand subtly knocked the spear out of alignment, allowing me to get past its wicked point. With the blunted rear of the axe, I smashed the bare forehead of the spearman hard. He rolled hard and smashed into a grey marble wall.

I formed my shield and finally looked around. Surrounding me was a semi-oval grey marble wall. Beyond which sat banked row of benches. All the benches were of the purest black marble. In the farthest point, within the banked row of benches, sat the gigantic seated statue of Aggard, her gleaming gold surface standing out from the black marbled benches.

In front of her legs, was a platform made from the grey marble of the wall. On it was a single white marble throne. Seated on the throne was an elderly man, his tanned face lined with winkles. Though he did his best to seem proud and regal, he could’ve taken lessons from Celameth. His long, grey hair hung limply over his shoulders.

‘Halt, who are you and why do you threaten us?’ At least his voice was clear, strong, and projected well.

By now the spearman had stood up. The divine power in this place did its job and healed him up. Still, he hadn’t moved from where I had knocked him. He was also looking at me with fearful eyes.

‘Me, threaten you?’ I laughed, unable to even think of something more stupid.

These were the people who had ripped me away from my Alis, dragged me into a strange place, and then lay hands on me. Not once, but twice.

My connection to Alis was still there and I invited her to come next to me.

When she appeared in her normal dress, tears welled up in her eyes. She then rubbed them away. When she got herself under control, Alis finally realised that I had armed myself. So with a faint usage of divinity, she transformed from the pretty dress into a warrior maiden. Even if she wasn’t a maiden no longer, she looked like one.

Unless she went all out, when the hellion with the fiery hair would strike down all who would oppose her. All, that is, but me.

‘Darling, I know we trained this morning, but would you do me the honour of another bout?’ I asked Alis.

She nodded.

I changed into mail armour, including a viking style spectacle helmet.

Then, without a signal, we both burst apart, then came at each other. Alis matched my level of divinity. We started using about a tenth of our total amount. As we started fighting, I felt the oddness of the surrounding divinity hinder our movements.

Still, at this low level, our sparing must’ve been something else. My powerful and simple axe strikes were often deflected by her sword and her graceful flowing movements made it easy for her to dodge my attacks with the most effortless of margins. Sometimes I would add in some shield bashes or other bodily attacks.

On the other hand, my shield easily blocked her careful, and dance-like sword blows. Sometimes I would divert them using a slight twist to the shield.

At this level, we were easily matched and I knew we were focusing more on the subtleties of the fight, and how we were moving, even sometimes planning five or six attacks down the line.

After a set amount of time, we eased up on the restriction on the amount of divinity we were using. Finally, we reached about eighty percent of our divinity. It was here that Alis made a slight mistake. She slightly overstepped. Taking advantage of this, I stepped in, hooking my foot around hers. Then I pushed in with my shield. Her sword, and sword arm, were caught between her body and my shield.

She tripped. I brought my axe and gently touched it against her head.

‘You still fight too cleanly, Darling.’ I said, returning my shield and axe to my mana pool. ‘Remember what Hallvard tried to teach you.’

‘I know,’ she said, hanging her head so I couldn’t clearly see her beautiful freckled face. ‘But try as I might, I just cannot get used to those tricks of yours.’

I helped her up and hugged her close to me. From her heaving chest, she too, like me, had found this bout slightly exhausting. Still, I was exhilarated by the slight exhaustion. Maybe we would have to borrow this place again for more training.

With Alis’ hand in mine, I boosted to the white marble throne. Up close, I could see how ornate it was. There were lots of wonderful carvings, all to do with the elderly man currently sitting on it.

Using two fingers behind his neck, I forced him off the throne. He tumbled and landed in an undignified heap next to the grey marble wall.

I sat down on the throne. The throne sent a shot of divinity through me. It felt like an invasive force before it settled down into a warm, comforting feeling. One which reminded me of Aggard.

Just as I was getting used to the warmth, the throne vibrated in an alarming manner. Before long, it reformed itself to make it comfortable for me to sit on. The back of the throne grew taller. The once ornate carvings on the marble throne faded away. Then the pristine white marble shifted into a dull black rock.

Somehow, I saw just how the throne was changing. No longer was it the ornate throne of the elderly man who remained huddled in heap, his long grey hair sprayed wildly around. In its place was a stark black throne. Its arms were solid, black lumps, and its back spread up higher than needed, acting as a form of banner. On the banner were two crossed keys, both standing out brilliantly from the black by being pure white.

As I sat on my throne, Alis came to stand next to me. Her armour now a stark black.

From down in the arena, the woman whom I had thrown onto the floor and put my axe blade against her throat stood up tall.

‘Here this, all denizens of our divine realm, our foreseen Warrior King has arrived. He has claimed his throne. All Hail our Destroyer.’

Before I could fully fathom what she said, the once empty stands of the arena were now packed with countless gods, goddesses, demi-gods, and other divine beings. All of them wasting their divinity in needless displays of power.

‘All Hail our Destroyer.’ They intoned enmass.

The slightly regal elderly man got up onto his knees. He bowed before me.

‘I recognise you, and give worship to you, Our Destroyer.’

As he said that, I felt an intense inflow of divine power into the very core of my being.