Chapter 422

Black Doors II

A choked sob lodged in my throat as I stared down at Ellie. My mind was blank. I grasped for sense, but the image of her ripped open and crimson with her own blood seemed so impossible, so unbelievable, that all reality shivered to a halt. The only thing to penetrate my brain aside from the horrible sight was the mournful roaring and tramping of Boo behind me, which felt like a manifestation of the emotions I couldn’t shake loose myself.

“—thur!”

A hand was on my shoulder, squeezing and shaking. A heavy wave of aether rolled outward from my body in response, and the hand pulled away. Distantly, I was aware of Mica and Lyra struggling against the monsters.

A shadow crossed over Ellie, and I looked up into Regis’s bright eyes, now full of our shared despair. He phased into incorporeality, then took on the shape of a wisp as he sank down into Ellie’s body.

My spark of hope was doused before it even fully manifested. ‘She’s…gone,’ Regis thought, drifting around her core. ‘Wait. There’s something wrong—’

The weight of Ellie’s body vanished from my arms as she became transparent. For a moment I could see plainly how the dark wisp of Regis settled into her outline, then they both vanished, dissolving like the monster that had killed her.

I opened my mouth to yell or curse, but only a wheezing breath came out.

“W-what happened?” Mica asked, batting aside a skeletal, grinning beast, but not before it took a chunk out of her side.

“Regent…Leywin, you must…release your—”

Rage flared within me and I spun on Lyra. The Alacryan retainer shrank back and fell to her knees, succumbing to the force of my intent. Aether formed into a sword in my hand without my conscious manipulation. There was fear in her eyes, radiating as bright and clear as the reflection of my weapon.

Grimacing, I swung the blade.

It carved through flesh and bone. A brief shriek of pain, then silence.

The monster that had manifested behind Lyra collapsed into two pieces, then melted away.

Closing my eyes, I forcefully retook control of my aura. When I opened them again, Lyra was watching me warily. She swallowed heavily, then eased back to her feet, as if she was afraid that any sudden movement might set me off again. In the next instant, her entire body flinched at a roar from Boo. The bear launched itself at another attacker, ripping into it mercilessly.

What am I going to do now?

‘You have to go on without us,’ a somber voice answered in my mind.

I froze. Regis?

‘Don’t worry about us. We’re in heaven now. It’s beautiful. Nothing but busty demon babes as far as the eye can see, you know? Just like I always wanted.’

An eerie tremor ran up my spine. Before I could reply, a light bloomed in the distance, arcing across the empty black background like a flare.

One of Ellie’s arrows.

It had to be. Boo looked up from his kill, the light reflecting in his small black eyes, then he vanished with a slight pop.

Regis, you son of a bitch, explain or—

‘Don’t speak ill of the dead, princess,’ Regis shot back.

I rushed to the door that would lead me backwards, but hesitated, turning to look at Mica and Lyra. Another horror had manifested, but Lyra and Mica were already unleashing their spells.

“Go, we’ll be fine,” Mica said, spinning to slam her hammer into the jaw of a faceless monstrosity.

Wasting no more time, I went through the door. It seemed painfully, impossibly slow moving, dragging me through empty space with deliberate malaise. When I finally reached the second platform, I fired an aetheric blast from my palm, ripping apart two of the monsters, then hurried back into the door.

My heart stopped.

Standing on the edge of the starting platform, staring out into the zone, was Ellie, her bow in hand. Boo stood next to her, nuzzling her and moaning deep in his chest. Ellie, who was pale and shaking, had one hand entwined through his fur, holding on as if afraid she was about to fall.

“Ellie,” I gasped as I stepped out of the door.

Twisting around, her face wrinkled up as sobs overtook her, and she threw herself into my arms, heaving breathlessly. I could do nothing but hold on to her, too shocked to even feel joy that she was alive.

Eventually she pulled away from me to wipe her face on her sleeve. Her eyes were red and swollen, and there was a sense of horror in them that kept her from looking at me straight on.

I stroked her hair and made gentle cooing noises to try and comfort her. “What happened?”

“What happened is easy,” Regis said, sitting back on his haunches. “Like our furry compatriot here, we poofed across the zone. Ellie reappeared in her door, and I came out of yours. How and why it happened…” He trailed off with a shrug.

I pulled Ellie to me, lifted her up off the ground, and pressed my lips to the top of her head. “I’m so sorry, El. I never should’ve…I—” I felt her small hands press against me, and I eased up, allowing her to pull back.

“It wasn’t your fault, Arthur,” she said, wiping her puffy, tear-reddened eyes. “It happened so fast. It felt…it was so real.”

I went quiet, unable to think past one all-encompassing fact.

I had failed. My sister had died in my arms. Whatever was happening in this zone that brought her back didn’t change that.

Reaching into the extradimensional storage rune, I withdrew the Compass.

“What are you doing?” Ellie asked, taking a step back, a slight flush coming to her ghostly-pale cheeks.

“I’m going to take you back.”

“No, I don’t—”

“This isn’t a debate,” I said firmly, not looking at her. I didn’t want to see the expression of hurt I knew was on her face. “I know exactly what you’ve just been through, because I went through it myself a hundred times in Epheotus. But now, unlike there, we don’t know if you’ll come back again, or how many times. We don’t have any idea what’s happening here. The platforms are only going to get harder, and if I couldn't protect you in the earlier ones…”

Ellie grabbed my arm and pulled at me, reminding me suddenly of the way she’d used to drag my mother around the shopping district. Bile rose up in my throat as I imagined telling Mom that Ellie had died…

Warm tears slid down my face. “I can’t lose you too, El.”

'

“You won’t—Boo, help me!” she sputtered.

The guardian bear sat down and huffed, turning his face away from Ellie. Her grip loosened and slid off my arm. “Boo…”

She approached her bond slowly, but he kept turning, putting his back to her. She sighed and leaned in against him, pressing her face into his fur.

I gritted my teeth and resisted the urge to crush the metal half-sphere in my trembling fingers.

It wasn’t working. The aether moved into and through the artifact, but didn’t activate it. It was dormant, like God Step and Destruction.

We were trapped.

One of the doors glinted with internal light, and Mica appeared within it. Her breathing was labored, and I almost thought I could hear the rapid hammering of her heart. I released her almost instantly. She solidified in front of her door, her hands patting up and down her body frantically as she confirmed it was really there.

“It’s okay, you’re—”

“I died…” She blinked several times in a fashion that would have been almost comical if not for the horror of our situation. “But…I’m not dead.”

“You’re very much alive,” I said, squeezing her shoulder. “We’re not sure what’s—”

“Oh,” Mica said, the exhalation part gasp, part moan.

I turned to follow the line of her gaze. Lyra had appeared in her doorway, looking slightly green.

I hurried over and, with a spark of aether, drew her out. Her eyes drifted closed and she took a deep breath, then wrapped her arms around herself.

“I can still feel it, the claws and teeth inside me, ripping and tearing at the meat,” she said in a breathy whisper. “I’ve been subjected to many tortures in my life, but that was by far the worst…”

After taking a few minutes to calm down, we were all sitting in a circle around a small bottled flame that Mica had brought. It took some prodding, but I had convinced Ellie, Mica, and Lyra to eat, and they were chewing mindlessly on some of their rations. Ellie was leaning back against Boo’s side, her focus somewhere deep in the void darkness. Lyra and Mica both watched the flames curl and snap with matching haunted expressions. Regis was standing several feet away from everyone else, his back to the fire.

“When we first arrived here, you two mentioned feeling strange in your own skin,” I said, breaking the long-held silence. “And some of my godrunes are dormant and unusable.”

Mica only grunted in response.

Lyra leaned toward the fire, moving her index finger in and out of one lashing tongue of flame. “You think…what, exactly? That we’re…” She waved her hand in shallow circles, trailing off as she searched for the words.

“I doubt even the Relictombs can resurrect the dead,” I said, steepling my fingers in front of my lips. “This zone is different. I don’t think it’s real. Not in a physical sense, anyway.”

“What does that even mean?” Mica asked gloomily. She punched the ground beside her. “That feels pretty real to me.”

I shook my head. “I know, but hear me out. When I trained in Epheotus, I spent a lot of time—years, actually—inside a relic called the aether orb. It’s complicated, but it basically manifested my mind and spirit inside another realm, where I could train and fight—and die—indefinitely.”

Lyra hissed. “Vritra’s teeth, that’s cruel even by Alacryan standards. So what we just went through…”

I gave her a tight-lipped, humorless smile. “I’ve done hundreds, if not thousands, of times. You…” I looked at Ellie and hesitated. “Experiencing death over and over is something you can never get used to. It messes with your mind, and warps your sense of what’s real. I didn’t bring you here to experience that.” After all, what was the point of going through such trials myself, if not to keep those I loved from experiencing the same?

“You think this is…like that?” Ellie asked, plucking absently at Boo’s fur.

“I know the djinn have similar magic. In the first two ruins I discovered, I fought the djinn manifestations inside of my mind. It felt real, but it was separate from physical reality. This zone could be too.”

The silence crept back in as everyone considered this theory. After a couple of minutes, Lyra said, “Perhaps this is the universe punishing us, forcing us to feel the deaths of all those we’ve killed…”

“Don’t lump me in with you,” Mica snapped, jumping to her feet and leveling a glare at Lyra. “I’ve always had reasons to kill someone. Right reasons.”

Barely audible, Lyra whispered, “From where I stood at the time, so did I.”

Mica scoffed but sat back down, glaring into the small flame. “We need some kind of plan of attack here.”

“Agreed. Even if we cannot die here, I have no desire to experience that again.” A shiver ran through Lyra as she finished speaking.

We discussed it for a while. Although no revelation was made about how we could progress deeper into the zone, it provided an opportunity for the others to rest and rebuild their confidence.

But one aspect of our progress in particular continued to vex me. I didn’t voice my concern out loud, but those last moments where it was just me and Ellie on the platform were the most difficult and dangerous.

How can I protect Ellie from the increasing number of monsters while we both have to concentrate on creating the connection between doorways?

My aetheric powers had given me the strength to reclaim a lifetime of training and power in a matter of months, but I was well aware that there were limitations to what I could accomplish with such limited flexibility.

‘The problem with a sword is that it’s only as useful as the swordsman’s ability to wield it,’ Regis said, watching me from across the fire. ‘Which, of course, is why I am the superior weapon.’

When I was a quadraelemental mage, I had a dozen spells at my disposal that would have been more effective. I need to be able to defend myself without one hand tied behind my back, so to speak.

‘You’re thinking about the second djinn projection,’ Regis noted, frowning.

I should have pushed myself harder to learn her techniques.

‘Isn’t the point of all this insight business that you have to discover these things for yourself?’ Regis pointed out.

It’s not enough. If I can—

I cut myself off, acknowledging the spiraling pattern of my thoughts. It was a deep, twisting road down the path of self-doubt and regret. And another part of me knew that I had learned what I could, or what I had to in order to progress. Now, though, was one of those times. Without increasing my skills, there was no way to get my companions through this zone.

“Don’t think talking’s going to get us any further,” Mica said unexpectedly. When she turned to face me, her huge hammer coalesced in her hands. She let the hammer’s head fall heavily to the floor, and I felt the weight of it tremble through the mana. “I don’t care if I die a thousand times, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this place get the better of me.”

Beside her, Ellie gave me a grim-faced nod.

Lyra unfolded from her sitting position, rolling her shoulders as she stood. “Indeed. Though, I would prefer avoiding feeling the grasping claws of death again…”

I studied my companions for a moment. Although I could sense the scars of their experience hidden just beneath the surface, outwardly they projected strength and defiance. With aether, I plucked at the force that was always tethered to me. Black scales inlaid with gold feathered into existence over my body as the relic armor enveloped me.

Mica cracked her neck and gave me a vicious grin. “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”

***

“I wasn’t ready for that,” Mica gasped, wiping vomit off her mouth.

She was on her hands and knees, a pool of sick splattered across the ground beneath her, but I understood the reaction. Watching as a headless horror pulled her intestines out through a gaping hole in her stomach wasn’t like the quick deaths I had experienced at Kordri’s hands so many times.

Taking her under the arm, I helped lift her to her feet, then wiped a streak of bile off her cheek with my sleeve.

As we had moved to the fourth platform, the horde of grotesque monsters had overwhelmed Mica before Lyra could even arrive. Regis had fought them off, killing enough to make way for Lyra, and the rest of us tried to push on. Unfortunately, it had taken Regis three attempts to find the fifth platform, and in that time Boo fell under a wave of attackers.

Deciding there was no point in moving forward, we headed backwards, but that proved just as difficult, and Lyra perished on the way, dragged off the platform by rending claws. But at least my sister hadn’t died again.

Once Mica was steady on her feet, I went about releasing the others from their doorways. Boo seemed unphased by his repeated deaths. Lyra was quiet, and the others seemed to take their cue from her.

I wasn’t sure how much of this they could take.

“We need to move faster,” Mica said after the post-death fog had cleared. “Sometimes there are multiple doors facing the next platform, right? We should send two through at once.”

“But that removes two people from the battlefield,” I countered.

“True, but it would speed up getting two of us to the next platform, which is when things are the most dangerous for us,” Lyra pushed back. “You are always the last to leave one platform for the next, and you are the strongest. It is as the rest of us move to a new platform that we are going to struggle, especially the first person there.”

Regis hummed deep in his chest, almost more of a growl. “Even if Ellie and Arthur can keep up with sending two more-or-less at once, there have only been a couple of platforms where that’s even an option. Really, whoever is following me needs to get there and turtle up until help arrives.”

“Then send me first this time,” Lyra said, not quite able to hide the quaver of fear in her voice. Mica scowled, looking as if she wanted to argue, but Lyra forged on. “My defensive spells are more potent. If we can’t be sent at the same time, then I go first. You’ve”—her tone softened somewhat—“had it worse than I have. It is my turn to take that risk.”

Mica’s anger morphed into uncertainty, then begrudging acceptance. “Yeah, all right. Whatever.”

“Third time’s a charm,” Regis muttered, then vanished through a door.

***

As Ellie finished firing the connecting arrows between two doors, Boo’s image vanished from the door in front of us. I was keeping tabs on the battle at the next platform through my link with Regis. So far so good.

Ellie transitioned from preparation to combat with growing ease. Arrows of white light and pure mana leapt rapidly from the string of her bow, hitting target after target. We were on the sixth platform, and the monsters were surging constantly from the void, manifesting two or three at a time.

I counted in my head as I cut them down, moving constantly so as to try and protect her from every direction. Her arrows picked off some just as they formed, but any who closed in on us, she left to me.

My blade carved through a slashing arm, severing it at the elbow, then reversed direction and bit deep into the monster’s boney hip. With my free hand, I pulled Ellie away from the scything claws of a four-armed horror that was skittering up from behind. With a forward kick, I sent it flying off into the void, where it vanished, reabsorbed by the darkness that birthed it.

Vaulting over Ellie, I came down blade first, bisecting a headless creature from shoulder to hip. Two closed in on me at once, one lunging at my legs while the other leapt into the air, pushing off a skeletal, whip-like tail. Focusing aether into my fist, I sidestepped the low attack as I caught the flying creature on the tip of the aether blade. It’s body slid onto the blade effortlessly, and gnashing jaws closed around my throat as claws raked across the black scales of my armor.

A surge of aether from my core answered, reinforcing the armor. At the same time, I yanked my blade sideways, tearing a line through one monster’s chest as I released the aetheric blast. The second attacker vanished in a violet cone.

Twenty.

“Ellie, door!” I shouted.

She conjured her arrows, which I struggled to imbue with aether as I simultaneously fought off our attackers. Without her arrows picking them off as they formed, it grew even more difficult.

Her first arrow sank into the corner of the door in front of us. Her second went flying off into the void, aimed at the next platform.

I was surrounded by the grisly creatures, my focus split between getting her into the door and defending her.

The distant arrow sank into the void, falling just short of the door she’d been aiming for. In the quarter-second the sight of the plummeting arrow distracted me, one of the creatures darted beneath my swinging blade. It’s three clawed limbs wrapped around Ellie, the force of the impact jerking her off her feet and carrying her out over the void.

I jumped into the air, reaching for her.

Her hand closed around mine, but a dozen spindly arms had already grabbed her and were dragging her down. Three more of the horrible things slammed into me from behind, and I was half pushed, half dragged over the edge with her. In an instant, we were both pulled into the darkness, and then everything went cold and blank.

I stepped out of the door onto the starting platform the moment I manifested. Across from me, Ellie was staring out from her door with a defeated expression.

‘Well, shit,’ Regis thought, sensing my frustration and angst. ‘What do we do?’

Can you hold out long enough for us to get back? I sent, moving to Ellie’s door and releasing her. The instant I did, Boo popped out of nowhere, nudging between Ellie and me and growling sternly.

‘Not now,’ Regis thought. ‘Lyra’s already wounded, and we’re completely surrounded.’

Only a few seconds passed before Lyra once again appeared in her door. Wearily, I released her. She sank to the ground and leaned her back against it, her eyes closed.

Mica returned less than a minute later. “What happened?” she asked as she manifested. “I felt like we were getting the hang of things.”

“I missed my shot,” Ellie answered, her voice sinking. She rubbed her hands down her face, then turned away, groaning and mussing her hair. “And then one of those things got me and dragged me off the platform.”

Mica kicked the ground with the armored toe of her boot. “I really hate this place.”

“What now?” Lyra asked, not bothering to open her eyes. “We made it farther, but…”

“But I’m too slow,” Ellie said matter-of-factly. “And Arthur has to split his attention.”

“Take some time to rest,” I suggested. “Prepare yourselves mentally. That’s the important part.”

“What are you going to do, then?” Mica asked, raising a brow.

“What I do best,” I said with a humorless smile. “Train.”

With a mental command to Regis, I headed for Ellie’s door, taking it to the second platform. As I drifted through empty space, surrounded by the perception of shadows moving within the darkness, I forced my mind clear of all my worries and fears, all considerations beyond this very instant and what I planned to do with it.

When I arrived at the second platform, I moved to the center. With my eyes closed, I pictured the second djinn projection, the woman who had guarded over the keystone containing knowledge of Realmheart. I copied the stance she had used during our battle. The aether, responding to my intentions, flowed into the shape of a blade in my right hand. A moment later, a second blade consolidated in my left.

It wasn’t strenuous to hold them both, but this kind of two-weapon fighting had never been my focus. Acknowledging this fact helped me see part of the problem: I’d learned to fight with a single blade, been taught that my weapon was an extension of my arm.

One of the monsters congealed out of the void, crawling onto the platform and snarling with a mouth that took up most of its face. Yellow eyes stared at me from its shoulders, and a whip-like tail snapped back and forth.

I waited. When it lunged, I took a step back, letting its claws pass right in front of me. My swords swept across its neck, closing like shears, cleanly removing the grotesque head. The monster dissolved, and I returned to my starting position.

Even now, the way I held a sword, the way I fought, was based on the principles I had learned as King Grey. Kordri’s influence was there, too, in my footwork and timing, in mastery over the micro-movements of my blade and body in concert. But, really, I was still very much the same swordsman I had been in my previous life.

Except I couldn’t be. It was a limiter, locking my perspective into a single way of doing things. What was it the djinn had said?

“It is not power you lack. It is perspective. Constraining yourself to a system that already exists around you only holds you back.”

I was unknowingly locked into an out-of-date methodology, and this was preventing me from utilizing my own abilities fully. My abilities as a swordsman made me strong—or so I’d thought, but now I recognized the need to evolve past what I already knew.

“You are trying to win, but you should be trying to learn.”

Recalling how a third sword had appeared over her shoulder, then a fourth by her hip, I imagined similar blades hovering around me. Aether flowed from my core. From my peripheral vision, I watched the purple light flicker like sunbeams through stained glass. Sensing my own distraction, I closed my eyes instead, entirely focused on the mental image.

The aether was there, but I couldn’t shape it. Thinking perhaps it was a matter of dividing my attention, I released the blades in my hands.

Another of the things came for me. I listened as its taloned feet scratched against the smooth mana-forged surface. Although I could feel the aether infusing its body, I focused instead on the sound of air rushing over the surface of its dark flesh when it attacked. Eyes still closed, I caught one arm, then the other. A third scraped across the scales of my armor. With a swift turn, I lifted its emaciated body and tossed it, sensing as its physical form was reabsorbed by the void.

Minutes past in this state of flux. I defended myself when necessary, otherwise focused entirely on the aether. I treated it like meditation, letting myself stop worrying about whether it worked as I embraced the effort itself.

I kept track of the time by counting the monsters I slew as they crawled out one by one to attack. Five became ten, became twenty, and then forty. When I eventually lost count, I acknowledged the need for a break and took the doorway back to the others.

Mica and Lyra, who had been watching me for the last thirty minutes or so, avoided my eyes, and I realized I was scowling, my frustration bleeding through my attempts to limit my expectations and stay calm. I wiped the dour expression off my face. “I’m getting closer,” I assured them, although I wasn’t entirely sure if that was true.

The twang of a bowstring drew my attention to Ellie, who was standing on the opposing edge of the platform and summoning arrow after arrow. Some she sent off into the void, directionless, while others she let dissipate. Boo watched her attentively, occasionally making deep grunting and humming noises.

She must have felt me looking at her; she glanced in my direction, but immediately refocused on her training. “I need to get faster,” she said simply.

As I watched another glowing arrow streak through the darkness, I had an epiphany.

“El,” I said, excitement practically vibrating out of me.

She stopped mid-draw, her lips pursing into a pouty frown. “Huh?”

“I need you to train me!” Moving to stand in front of her, I rested my hands on her shoulders, turning her body to face me directly. “The tether you use to maintain a spell's shape. That’s what I’m missing.”

Her brows furrowed and she looked at me with obvious confusion. “I can’t teach you that, though. The spellform just kind of…does it. I don’t know—”

“But you do,” I insisted, a smile widening across my face. “The spellform may help you shape the mana, but it’s still your mana. The way it feels, the shape it takes, that’s what I need to understand.

Ellie looked to the others for support. “But I—”

Lyra cut in, saying, “It is true that the runes provide the shape of the spell, but it is the mage’s knowledge and understanding that allows them to master it. Although you are just beginning, you still know about this spell. Whether you can provide enough context into your understanding for Regent Leywin to share your insight, I can’t say.”

“I mean, of course I’ll try,” she said after a moment, smiling weakly and hanging her bow over her shoulder. “So, um, where do we start?”

***

Ellie sat in the center of the platform, her eyes closed. Several spheres of mana gently orbited her, each glowing with soft white light.

I was pacing slowly around her in the opposite direction of the sphere's orbit. Realmheart was active, conjuring the glowing purple runes under my eyes and across my skin and revealing the mana particles. There was a constant flow of mana from Ellie’s core into her spellform, which then sent a thread of mana out to each of the spheres: the “tether” that Ellie had felt.

She wasn’t manipulating the atmospheric mana, which was how a conjurer would do something similar, but utilizing her own purified mana in a method consistent with being an augmenter. But I still didn’t understand what the spellform was doing. The effect of sustaining her spell without her conscious input—or even understanding—was closer to how an artifact might work than an actively cast spell.

The important part for me, however, was whether or not I could simulate this ability to do something similar with aether.

One of the threads shone brighter suddenly. “What did you just do?” I asked, honing in on the phenomena.

“It’s sort of like…flexing a muscle,” she said slowly, thinking about each word. “Like when you are trying to relax before meditation, and you tighten and release each individual muscle. Some of them are hard, because you don’t use them very often. I’ve been stretching, trying to touch the tether itself, and I think I just did.”

“I saw it,” I said, mulling over her explanation.

As I paced, I formed a sphere of aether, the amethyst light of which stained Ellie’s mana pink. At a thought, the sphere lifted out of my grasp, hovering just a few inches above my palms.

Thinking of Ellie’s description, I began to flex and release the various parts of my focus. Similar to how I’d found the gaps around the edge of the illusion in the third ruin, I needed to bring any unconscious aspects of my aether usage into my conscious mind.

It was difficult. As Grey, I’d learned the internal manipulation of ki, and become exceedingly efficient at it. Then, as a quadraelemental mage, I’d been an augmenter, shaping mana inside myself before sending it outward as a spell. This had carried over into my aetheric abilities as well, with all my powers either being initiated within my body or channeled through a godrune.

But Ellie was an augmenter as well. She may have had the benefit of a spellform to shape the mana for her, but that didn’t change the fact that her technique was still possible.

I returned my attention to her, the spellform, and the tether of mana particles that flowed between Ellie and the orbiting sphere. The key was there. I just needed to find it.

***

Mica’s image in the doorway vanished as Ellie completed the connection utilizing her aether-imbued mana arrows. With one hand, I unleashed an aetheric burst that destroyed three creeping monsters. With the other, I caught a barbed tail that had lashed out at Ellie. Before the monster could react, I activated Burst Step, having already pushed aether into my muscles, joints, and tendons.

The single, near-instant step took me across the platform, where my armored elbow impacted against a two-faced horror’s skull, crushing it. I still had the other monster by the tail, and its momentum carried it into two more only partially on the platform. All three went flying away into the void in a tangle of shattered limbs.

Arrows zipped past me constantly, leaving bright afterimages in the dark before impacting target after target.

Boo was back-to-back with Ellie with three of the misshapen horrors pinned beneath him. A violet blade of aether spun around the pair, chopping and hacking at anything that came too close.

By studying Ellie’s tethering ability, I had been able to visualize something similar, like an invisible third arm attached to the weapon and holding it aloft, freeing my hands and giving me a wider range of motion. It was imperfect. It took very nearly all my focus and I had to be aware of where it was in relation to my allies at all times, my control over it was clumsy at best.

Still, after several hours of practice, I had learned how to wield the sword from up to twenty feet, which proved especially useful when I was focused on imbuing aether into Ellie’s arrows. This had allowed us to progress to the twelfth platform, where Regis, Mica, and Lyra were defending themselves against a horde of attackers.

Boo roared out a warning as a jagged, spiderish manifestation dropped from above, too many arms and legs splayed out as it plummeted toward Ellie.

Aether concentrated in my fist, quickly building up enough pressure to make the small bones ache.

Mentally reaffirming my grip on the aetheric sword, I lifted it above Ellie and slashed with all the grace of a butcher’s cleaver.

Ellie dodged away from the falling monster, but two more were clamoring onto the platform less than five feet from where she ended up.

The aether blade sheared off several limbs with the first strike then split the monster in two with the second, raining down thick black ichor. At the same time, I released the aetheric blast that had built up in my hand, obliterating the two other grasping horrors before their claws could reach her.

Lunging across the platform away from the striking tail of another, I headed for the doorway to the next platform. Ellie raced to meet me there, sending arrows back past me. I heard the mana sink into my pursuer’s flesh, and its body clatter to the floor.

Ellie conjured two arrows and I hurried to imbue them both with aether while simultaneously swinging the hovering blade, hacking apart any enemies that got close enough. Boo rushed around the edge of the platform, his massive paws delivering crushing blows to monster after monster.

The first arrow sank into the portal right next to us. Barely an instant later, the second was arcing through the void, aimed at a door almost five hundred feet away.

I knew from the relief on Ellie’s tense face that the arrow had hit its mark, and took Ellie by the arm with one hand as the other pressed against the door. When I channeled aether, she vanished off the platform and her image appeared in the glossy black panel.

Instantly, both arrows detonated as her connection to the mana was severed, releasing my aether into the tether her arrows created, and she vanished again.

Boo howled in pain as a headless abomination with deformed limbs covered in spurs landed on his back and tore at his tough hide, but there were three more between us.

Dismissing the tethered sword, I reconjured it into my hand, set my feet, and Burst Stepped toward the guardian bear. At the end of the step, I released my weapon. It spun away in a blur, passing through Boo’s attacker before dissolving in the void. Behind me, three corpses sloughed to the ground in pieces.

I knew when Ellie had reached the next platform because Boo vanished with a pop, and I wasted no time in entering the door myself. Within it, I could more clearly see the next platform and the series of doors surrounding it. Picking one of the three that faced back in this direction, I thought about moving to it.

I drifted forward, out of the door and into open space. It was a familiar sensation by now. Little by little, I picked up speed as the void seethed with oozing shadows around me.

During the slow passage of time between the two platforms, I watched my companions battle the now constant surge of skeletally-thin, humanoid monsters that poured out of the inky black space between platforms.

Regis blazed with violently purple aetheric flames, which he unleashed from his mouth to engulf several monsters at a time. He never stopped moving, throwing himself between our companions and their attackers, absorbing as much punishment as possible.

Mica and Lyra fought back-to-back with Ellie in between them. Walls of jagged black void wind sprang up wherever a monster appeared, keeping the tide at bay as Mica’s hammer unleashed cannon-ball sized lumps of stone and Ellie fired arrow after arrow. Whenever a creature was able to approach, the oversized hammer crushed it into the ground or a burst of void wind vibrated it apart.

The second I arrived on the platform, Regis vanished into the doorway, and I took up his role as defender. While the conjured horror’s claws weren’t slowed by the aetheric barrier any more than the mana protecting my companions, the relic armor deflected all but the most direct blows. In concert with my ability to heal rapidly, I shrugged off a number of strikes that would have killed any of the others.

Regis reappeared on the platform a moment later, and my stomach sank, fearing another dead end.

‘The exit portal is on the next platform,’ Regis thought, excitement bubbling under the surface of his thoughts.

“Hold the line!” I shouted, spinning around slashing claws before driving a blade into the attackers chest. “This is it, we’re almost out of here.”

Mica let out a victorious battle cry and slammed her hammer into the ground. Stone spikes stabbed up through half a dozen monsters, then burst apart, sending sharp shards of rock into as many more.

In response, Ellie gathered a silvery orb of mana and sent it into Mica, replenishing her mana levels even as she began to unleash bigger and more devastating spells.

‘Hey,’ Regis thought when he arrived on the distant platform a minute later. ‘It’s safe here. No more H. R. Giger-fever-dream-looking monstrosities.’

I refused to allow myself to relax with the end so close. A misstep now would be catastrophic. “Mica, you’re up!”

A gravity well formed to one side of the platform, dragging several monsters off it and clearing Mica’s way to the portal. She wasted no time in closing the distance, and I instantly sent her into the door. Ellie and I hurried to imbue the arrows as Lyra and Boo defended us. I supported them with the hovering blade, hacking and chopping at the endless horde.

It took almost a full minute for Mica to appear on the far platform, after which Lyra went next. To better defend ourselves now that we were down to three, Ellie, Boo, and I moved to the center of the fifty-foot-wide platform. Boo guarded Ellie from one side while I guarded the other. We became a maelstrom of aetheric blasts, mana arrows, and razor-sharp claws, keeping back the tide until I counted to sixty in my head.

“Time,” I announced, grabbing my sister and Burst Stepping to the door. We imbued the arrows in an instant, and then I sent her through.

Alone on the platform, I fell into a rhythm, moving with deadly efficiency as I carved through attacker after attacker. When the minute was up, though, I was glad to step through the door and to begin my last short voyage through this zone. A smothering mental fatigue was hovering just outside my thoughts, but I could feel it pushing in like the leading edge of a storm.

“So, that’s what it looks like when you go all out…” Ellie said as I stepped out of the door a minute later. Her shoulders were sagging and there were dark bags under her eyes, like she hadn’t slept in days.

Wrapping my arm around her shoulders, I dragged her along with me to the exit portal. She was tired enough not to protest.

I wasn’t entirely sure what waited on the other side. According to my mental map, this was the last zone before reaching the final ruin, but I hadn’t interacted with any other zone that took me out of my own body. Perhaps we would just wake up, refreshed and ready to go on to the next zone. Perhaps not…

Feeling certain that I wouldn’t need the Compass, since we weren’t actually traveling anywhere, I reached for the portal.

“Wait,” Ellie said, pulling away from me. She hesitated as everyone looked in her direction.

“What is it?” I asked, searching her eyes.

“I know the ruin is important, and obviously reaching it is our goal, but…” She swallowed and took a moment to find the words. “I don’t think we’ll ever get another opportunity like this.” She gestured behind her, into the void. “I came here to learn about my powers, to train and get stronger. I think we all did. It’s like you said, about the aether orb thing…that’s how you trained. Well, isn’t this a chance for us to do the same?” She looked at Mica and Lyra. “You both have gotten better already, and I definitely have.” Her eyes drifted back to me. “Even you’ve been able to progress here. You learned that flying sword thing so fast.”

She took a steadying breath, then continued. “I don’t know what’s going to happen between Dicathen and Alacrya—and even Epheotus—but I know I need to get a lot stronger if I want to be able to protect myself and…Mom. I—”

“El,” I said softly, reaching out to her.

She batted my hand away and forced herself to stand up straight. “I know what you’re going to say, that you’ll always be there to protect us, but we both know you can’t be. You don’t know where you’ll be dragged off to next. But my point, anyway, is that we have this place where we can fight and train and even if ‘dying’ here sucks, we just wake back up. We should take advantage of it.”

She took a deep, steadying breath and looked defiantly into my eyes. “We should do it again.”