When Serenity arrived back in the normal time stream, he was hit with a wave of pain and anguish. His first thought was that something had gone wrong with Tek’s toy, but he almost immediately nixed that idea. It felt nothing like the static had.

No, somehow it reminded him of when Hegemon Worms were killed, except that it was pain instead of dying agony - and it seemed to affect all of them instead of only a few.

[Pain resistance increased]

That was not a good sign at all. It made very little difference, unfortunately.

[Mind resistance increased]

That seemed to help a little more, but it was still only a very small change. Serenity supposed that was to be expected; his resistances were already very high, after all, so a small increase would be hard to notice.

He did seem to be thinking more easily. He reached out to find out what was happening and realized that large swathes of the Hegemon Worms he’d felt before didn’t respond to him anymore and the ones he did still feel were where the pain came from. As they disappeared, the pain went with them. Some of the Worms seemed to recover and the pain went away as well.

Serenity had been in pain for the month of the Tutorial. Was this the source of the pain, rather than the people who were dominated? That might make even more sense than the pain being from the dominated, the way he’d assumed. If the pain was killing some of the Worms, that would explain why they were disappearing.

Instead of trying to turn off the pain the way he had been, Serenity tried to reach out to a small group of worms. He found that they were, as expected, all in the same host. The unexpected part was that there weren’t enough of them. Every host he’d checked in the past had several times this many Hegemon Worms, and the worms seemed to agree with his rough assessment.

As he checked host after host, the pattern held true. Something had killed a large percentage of the Hegemon Worms he was connected to. The ones that remained were frantically trying to exit their current host any way they could to try to reach a host where there were enough worms present to retain control.

The pain was nearly gone; instead, Serenity was awash in panic as most of the living worms tried to gather in larger groups. Where they could, they grouped up and re-entered one of the hosts they’d left.

Where they couldn’t, they died searching.

It hurt. Serenity didn’t like the Hegemon Worms at all, yet the desperation they felt and sent to him woke an echo in his memory. All he could do was watch and feel.

It was possible that he might be able to change something if he tried. That was the role of the Sovereign, after all, and he felt it to his core that he was not doing that duty. Yet he’d long since decided that he did not want that duty to the Hegemon Worms and would indeed prefer that they were all dead.

Inaction was the easy way out. He’d already acted against them by making them turn themselves in. He now knew he’d acted against them inadvertently when he went to the Tutorial, stressing the link between them. That hadn’t been deliberate, but the choice now was: He would let them die instead of helping them survive.

Especially the ones in hosts elsewhere in the world. The losses made it clear that there had been hosts - mostly nonhuman - in places other than New York City. What little he could see of them told him that most were in cages; clearly, they were being studied, but it wasn’t obvious if they were being studied to figure out ways to kill them or if they were being studied because they demonstrated successful mind control.

It was probably both.

Which meant they all needed to die.

Serenity hadn’t tried his magic across the link before, but it was a connection. Where there was contact, magic could work. Death was his strongest Affinity, and used correctly it would simply kill what it was directed at. It was opposed by Life, but none of these were individually strong enough to win.

Serenity built the spell, aiming it at the Hegemon Worms that were linked to him that were the farthest physical distance away. The spell would run until they were all dead or - far more likely - it ran out of mana. Serenity knew how to build a spell that would pull mana from the death of its targets, but he refused to build it for this.

That type of spell was far too dangerous. Even as constrained as the one he was building was, it was entirely likely that it would kill the hosts the Hegemon Worms were in; they were simply too close. It shouldn’t kill anyone else. Probably.

Normally, this sort of spell worked far too poorly to count on; there simply wasn’t enough of a connection between things to bridge the gap between Life and Death for anyone other than oneself without overpowering it with mana. Yet Serenity knew it would work, because in a sense, he was casting it on himself, simply on the parts of himself that were Hegemon Worms and far away.

It wasn’t a comparison he liked.

Serenity reinforced the target definition sections. He’d rather some worms were left alive than have the spell spread past its targets. It shouldn’t, but it wasn’t worth the risk. The reinforcement should make it more likely the hosts would survive the spell, at least, though there might be unfortunate secondary consequences. That wasn’t something he could prevent, since it was the natural consequence of the worms.

Then he let the spell go.

Each death sent a small packet of Death energy back along the link as each worm’s minute consciousness dissolved in death.

It was neither pain nor pleasure, but it was such an intense feeling that it should have been one or the other. Serenity monitored the spell for as long as he could, but his consciousness disappeared in the sheer sensation of being flooded in Death energy.

His last thought was to wonder if he’d just discovered a new (if extremely impractical) way to attack a Sovereign, or if the weakness was specifically his.

When Serenity woke up again, it took him a moment to realize that there was a warm body cuddled against him. It was a gentle sensation, as was any pressure on his Void Sovereign form. The pain was gone, and he felt awash in the comfort of Death-tinted mana and essence.

It was the first time he’d woken up in any form other than the hatchling, and he knew it had to be because of the spell he’d done. He could feel the dungeon gently pushing him towards a more draconic form, but for the moment it wasn’t insisting.

The warm body was Rissa, and when he changed position to check on her, she woke. “Good morning, Serenity.” She had a big smile on her face.

Serenity suddenly realized she was looking directly at him in his Void Sovereign form and his fear rushed to the surface. He still hadn’t asked. He hurriedly shifted to his comfortable chimera shape. “You were looking at me. It doesn’t hurt, like the artifact, or…” He wasn’t sure how to ask the question.

Rissa shook her head. “You look like deep smokey darkness. It’s like looking at Curio.”

Serenity hadn’t even considered whether or not Curio would be a problem, so it was a good thing it wasn’t.

“Still, it’s probably as well. Aki was swearing last night about you being a boneheaded stubborn shapeshifter, so I’m guessing she wasn’t very happy.” Rissa’s grin seemed even bigger as she spoke, as though she liked passing along the complaint.

:Well, he is a boneheaded stubborn shapeshifter. If you ever do anything like that spell again, at least have the consideration to not do it in a single-level dungeon! I swear, you were emitting so much filtered mana you could have fed a four-level dungeon for a week!: Aki sounded positively grumpy, but something she said caught Serenity’s attention.

“Wait. Filtered mana?” He’d seen the word Filter in his Status, but the only thing he’d figured out how to do with the “filter” was to change mana and essence into each other.

:Mana without Intent.: Aki answered sharply, as though it was obvious. He supposed it was to her.

The only use Serenity could think of for Intent-less mana was to do something with it, but from what Aki said, dungeons consumed it. That made their desire to have people inside make a little more sense; it was well known that people, especially mages, tended to leak a little mana. Even more mana was emitted when they built and used spells.

Mages worked to reduce the amount of waste mana they produced, since that was mana that disappeared to no purpose. Perhaps it wasn’t as useless as he’d thought?

Serenity shook his head. He was woolgathering again. What mattered now was checking in on the Hegemon Worms. It didn’t take long; there were far, far fewer than there had been, and they were all in New York City. As he checked on them, he found that all of their hosts were in isolation rooms; he was confident that over the next few days, they would all be treated to kill the remaining worms.

Serenity spent the next three days freeing everyone the Hegemon Worm Queen had dominated in its drive to conquer the city. It was a slow, painful process and as the remaining Hegemon Worms died, it only became slower. As he got to the last few people, he regretted killing so many a few days earlier.

He spent the entire time in his hatchling dragon shape. It was the first time he’d spent much time awake in the shape, and he found that it was far more comfortable than he’d given it credit for. In many ways, it felt better than the chimera shape; his wings didn’t ache at the end of the day because of their position on his back, if nothing else.

When he finally finished, he shut himself away from everyone except Rissa for several hours. At first, it was to try to relax, but it quickly turned into something approaching the first date they’d had in entirely too long.

In the morning, he woke up in his chimera form. It was the first time he’d stayed in that shape overnight, and he could only assume it was because of how much time he’d been spending in dragon shape. Perhaps he needed to spend time in his “base form”? Or perhaps he simply needed time and practice. He’d only recently started deliberately spending time in anything other than the chimera form, after all.

It wasn’t the first time he’d wished his new body came with a manual, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Serenity could remember thinking exactly the same thing after he became a draugr as well.

That morning, Serenity knew he needed to start back up on what he was supposed to be doing. He intended to call Nightwitch and see where their plans stood, and had even gone as far as locating his cell phone when he felt the last Hegemon Worm he was linked to succumb to poison from a giant wasp.

[Conquered Swarm has expired]

[Temporary Skills Removed: Dominate, Observe, Command, Breed (Disabled), Transfer]

Serenity felt like a weight was lifted from him. The Hegemon Worms were gone and the results of the Sovereign Combat were also gone. Other than his Crystal Hilt form, at least; he still had that, but it was the only result he didn’t mind.

Voice? Is the threat to New York City gone?

The last time he’d asked, the Voice had refused to answer.

[The threat that caused the destruction of the city in the previous timeline is no longer present]

It was a careful answer, but that didn’t matter. They’d won this fight!

Serenity grinned hugely, before realizing that it still didn’t let him off the hook for everything else he needed to do, starting with calling Nightwitch.

End Of Arc 4