Elias had nothing to say when Celine recounted the events of the night. He had been busy with his own distractions, but they seemed to fade as he listened more and more. By the end, he couldn't even gather his words. He simply sat, blank face, gaze lost in the middle distance. Francis nodded as if he read a dire chart, turning to the prince as Celine sighed.

“This is why you’ll be necessary, my liege.” The doctor said with reverence and urgency. “Your Refraction will allow your sister to respond quickly. If we do this right and fast enough, the Almighty Want doesn’t have to be delayed for more than a week.”

Elias shook the fog from his head. “Doctor, I don’t know what you expect me to do here.” He looked at the Arbiter. “Look how weak it is, do I even have power?”

“More than you know, my liege.”

“Spill it, Francis. Time is wasting.” Celine demanded.

"When I worked with New Dawn they used black rituals to acquire godly power. I wanted to avoid them at all costs, but at this point, I think they may be the only thing we can do. It'll have the chance of saving your father... and siblings." Jacque and Luca placed them both by the Priest King. Francis frowned but continued. "It requires that you go to the Spear of Hell first, my lady. There is no place in New York that could work better."

“The Spear of Hell is that tower, right? What could I possibly find there?”

“The central point of the dark power.”

“This doesn’t sound like it’ll be safe.” Elias said.

“Normally, it wouldn’t, but with your help the princess shall be fine.”

"What will be the point?" Celine asked.

“Previously, Cerulean used a worthless, damaged tool to draw in food for God. This is not the fault of the castle, but the fools I mistakenly aligned with before. The tool has unfortunately escaped, but this is providence. We shall make a better one using the Baleful, and with it, we’ll mend the castle’s wounds...”

Celine ran her rapier through the sacrificial Baleful, feeling the surge of power before she could draw it in. When it did flow fissures ran up its body, cracking the flesh with geysers of blue light. It thrashed as best it could, but went nowhere as the Rapier became the center of that power. The sword melted into its body, forming a glass cage around the collected light. The Baleful went still, and Celine faced Fang with a smile.

“Make a different choice?” She said. “And what would that be? Should we join forces with you for the sake of a better tomorrow?”

“Why wouldn’t you? There’s no reason we need to be enemies!”

“Because you are unnecessary for our plans—you are not an element of the Almighty Want. If anything you are no different from the wild demons that sometimes stalk this city. You hunt for an advantage, just to feed your craven want."

“Craven? What could possibly be cowardly about wanting to save this city?”

“You turned to darkness, girl, as if there was no other choice. You chose the easiest path toward your desires. With all this darkness around us, it gave a weak heart the only answer it could ever seek. Cerulean fights to make a God strong enough to save this city. You, however, turned toward the very thing that damned it.”

“You don’t know anything! Your castle doesn’t have the slightest clue what type of danger the city, or even the world is in. You’re pretending like the God Eternal isn’t a threat to all of us, just because you can turn to the Arbiter.”

“The God Eternal?” The princess frowned. “How drab! It’s not enough for you to rely on evil, you also had to make a god to be your enemy.”

“You really don’t know…” Fang’s jaw tightened. She sighed. “No. I think you just refuse to believe it, but I’ve been here already. Castle Cerulean is one of my enemies. I just have to cut you down to accomplish my goal.”

The princess smiled once more. “I’m glad we’re in agreement. For my home and my sister, I’ll make it so you only see darkness.”

⁘⁛⁘

Magenta led Ace to a yellow light twinkling in the distance. There, the darkness encapsulated a mountainside town, and from that darkness, a spindly body descended. It raised a long finger and a portal swirled above it, breathing out titanic serpent forms that snaked through the sky. Rain fell next and shadows rose in the downpour, standing to stare into second-story windows. Arachnid legs rose from the alleys, carrying black flame figures armed with hooks. All things went still as leathery wings sprouted from their summoner’s back. The portal closed, and Ace turned to Magenta.

“What’s going on here?”

“The end of the world.”

The downpour shadows swung their arms, tearing through the stone buildings around them. The screams of the townspeople were muted by the storm, as they ran into the streets, rushing to a hall higher in the mountains. Hooks dropped, snatching up bodies, twirling them into flaming husks dropping embers on those running below. Whole crowds were swallowed as the serpents coiled through the streets. The summoner swung its arm and black spires erupted across the town. Hundreds died per second, clouding the air with the survivors’ despair. Ace felt it as well, balling his fist tight as the ruin went on.

“No one’s going to stop it?” He glared at the Spindly form. He knew he could do it too, and yet, something stayed his hand.

“Just wait.” Magenta replied.

A serpent slithered up a flight of stairs, chasing survivors as they rushed the hall. Ace almost slammed his eyes shut, until a trident flew, pinning the snake at its head. A yellow cape fluttered as someone followed, drawing the weapon to the sound of cheers as they stood upon the snake's body. It was a man as far as Ace could tell—someone in their mid-thirties with long dark hair. He wore pale white armor, accented with yellow, and he pointed the people to the building as a serpent struck at another group. With the trident spinning over his head, he split the beast in two. It zigzagged as he threw it next, ripping through the flame spiders and tearing off the shadows’ heads. It came back to him and he caught it at the shaft, turning it toward the summoner as a smile curled across its face.

They wasted no words, clashing with hands and blade, filling the sky with a burst of light and darkness. The caped knight sent the summoner flying back, losing pieces of his armor as the shadow tore them away. He and his trident became a rocket, crashing through spires as the summoner raised its hands. Shards dug into the knight's body, but that didn't stop his weapon from coming for the summoner's head. A portal did, however, opening beneath him for a massive hand to spike him back. A towering spire stabbed down from the sky, crushing him to the ground.

Ace tried to sense his light. “It’s over?” He looked at Magenta.

“Your sense is going the wrong way.” It shook its head. He scanned the town and immediately found the light rushing out of the building.

It was like a river had suddenly appeared, every last drop rushing through the ground. It came to a stop at the same point, falling down the drain of the knight’s corpse. Except, it wasn’t a corpse anymore. The knight pushed the spire up with a metallic white arm, his brown hair now blonde and fluttering like his cape. He did not wear the armor but bore it as a body. The summoner opened portals and hands punched out to smash him. A two-headed trident made them explode, and he crushed the spire as his grip tightened. Once again no word was wasted as he shot toward the summoner, driving his weapon up through its body. Light burned its shadowy flesh, and the knight snatched its head from its shoulders.

All the portals snapped shut and Ace felt joy overwhelm despair. The knight turned to the hall where people poured out, crying out cheers. It raised the severed head and the cheers grew louder, nearly bidding Ace to join in. The opportunity disappeared though, as the knight pitched the head. It hit the hall and a black pulse ripped through the survivors, leaving behind souls with yellow seeds inside them. The knight threw its head back with laughter, and Magenta nodded.

“Do you understand?” It said to Ace.

Ace grimaced. “He just killed all of them. Why go through the trouble of saving them if that’s what it was going to do!”

“Hope is powerful. When people see the end they choose it before they fall to fear. Hope is so much more potent than worship. When you pray for salvation, you feed your god potential.”

“That makes it sound like he knew this would happen.”

“He did. I wonder how many times he’s seen it already.”

“He knew and he let those people die.” Ace clenched his fist. “Just to make them more afraid so they’d be more hopeful.”

“As they are now, they will forget this day. They will be reborn and he will tell them a story of their ancestors, who fell to the forces of darkness. They will never know who they were, and will worship him until another dark force invades.”

“How did he even win? I thought our Dark powers made us the ultimate weapon against the light.”

“The darkness is the absence of light, but enough light can cast it away. Even when darkness is everywhere, people can find comfort in the light.”

“Why kill them then? What’s the point when he won?”

“After their God stops the end of the world, they’re going to expect prosperity. When that doesn’t happen they’ll eventually rebel, losing faith in god. That would weaken him, so he darkens the memory of life in their souls, restarting their species again and again. This will continue forever, until a thing that can neither be eroded by darkness nor cast away by light appears to end its reign for good.”

“You mean a Dark God…”

“Dark Gods wield their dark powers to contain the light. The light and darkness become one, making them uniquely lethal to gods. No being of light can compare.”

Not the God Eternal, nor the Crimson Prophet.

Ace nodded. “What do I have to do to wield this power properly.”

“Like I said, your flesh body gets in the way. The first thing you must do is evolve.”

⁘⁛⁘

Around King, the room began to glow with blue light. The souls above him changed to match it, as six balls of light swirled to life around Micaela. The researcher took a deep breath, giving a thumbs up. Khalaf nodded, and King pressed a button. Glyphs forged a line between the lights, tying them together. Micaela gulped, and King spoke aloud.

“Luminance Transplant!" The lights turned into needles, stabbing into her.

She screamed as electricity ran across her body, her eyes shining spotlights above. She could only see blue, falling within her like a drop of water. It hit the ground and splashed out, flowing through her like a ripple in the tide. She felt it from her toes to her chest, but when it hit her mind it hit like a geyser. The pain was suddenly gone. She felt alive. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the new feeling before opening them again. A face was now smiling down, porcelain-like a mask with deep blue eyes. It struck her a moment later that she was in the palm of something’s hand. A tiara sat tilted on its head, as straight dark hair fell around it.

“Smaller.” The titan said, and Micaela shrunk. The ridges of its hand looked like canyons, and all she could see was an eye in the sky. “Smaller.” It said again, shrinking her further. Cells rose like a crowded city around her. Her chest felt cold; her voice caught in her throat. “Smaller.” Still, it said, and she saw alien animals she had never imagined. Gelatinous blobs ate and split, multiplying every second. Bacteria? Was she seeing bacteria?

“What is going on!” She screamed for nothing to answer back. Was this drifting? Was this what Khalaf had to fight? How could she ever beat this?

Distantly—so far away it could be another lifetime—the person Micaela used to be, spoke with her voice.

“Finally. I have returned.” She stood as if she were a ballerina, pale body in a dark leotard; a glass skirt rotating around her hips. Long light gloves ran up her arms, framing a beautiful face that seemed almost made of silk. Painted lips curled into a smile, and heavily-shadowed eyes stared at King, half-lidded.

“Oh…” He gasped. “I finally understand…”