Before them, stood a single Conductor in a black robe. The Insignia of the Order of Eternal night was etched in a crimson thread on the front, and as per usual, armored plates were woven into the fabric. The man stood with a wicked smile on his face and his hand outstretched.

"Well, well well... Long time no see Alvin, do you remember me? Your sister certainly does!" Alvin coughed up a spout of blood and clutched at his chest, but the look of rage on his face radiated a deadly, violent expression.

Despite his injury, he rose to his full height and raised a finger at the Order member, blood cascading down his chest, "YOU! I've been waiting for you! I knew you'd come eventually. I bet you think you've gotten the jump on me eh?"

The Order member cackled and shook his head as he watched Alvin bleed out, "It looks to me like I did yeah. Now, are you going to die quietly? Or do these children have to watch me torture you to death?"

Alex and Melodi took a step back but Cypher stood his ground, his own rage building in his chest. Alvin had long ago shared the story of what had happened to his sister, Elise. This man had killed her with catastrophe magick, in order to obtain some ancient trinket.

As if that wasn't bad enough, he had used Retvial Magick to control her mangled corpse, and worst of all, he had soul trapped her within a crystal. Alvin had spent the better part of twenty years mourning her death and planning his revenge.

"Cypher who the hell is that guy?" asked Alex, but Cypher remained silent and only shook his head, as if to say, "Be quiet!"

Melodi was looking nervously at the Order member and Alvin, but she said nothing as the cloaked man continued to speak.

"Hmm, you seem like you still wish to fight. But tell me, are you really willing to let these children die because of your hubris? Why not just let me have the artifact and we can all leave here peacefully? Tell you what, you do that, and I'll even throw in one soul. How does that sound?"

The man was clearly taunting Alvin, but Cypher knew that he wouldn't back down. He also knew that right now, Alvin was depending on him to protect Alex and Melodi. The two of them weren't weak for their level, but this man was radiating the energy of the third rank. The two of them couldn't even leave a mark on this guy.

Cypher knew he could probably damage this Order member pretty severely, and could even help Alvin in his battle, but he could sense Alvin's determination. This was a battle he needed to fight on his own. There was one thing Cypher could do though, and if the moment arose, he would strike with all his power.

"CRUNCH"

Alvin had pulled a small pill from his robes, and after popping it into his mouth, he had bit down hard. The crunching sound lingered in the room for a moment as it echoed off the walls of the massive chamber. A cloud of white smoke started rising from Alvin, and he coughed as a cold wave shot through him.

In an instant, the hole in Alvin's chest sealed shut, forcing the earthen spike out of his body, and he rolled his shoulders. The instantaneous healing surprised Cypher and the others, but the Order member showed only a scowl of anger. Alvin moved quickly and his hand vanished within his robes.

Cypher had never once seen Alvin using a proper weapon, but in the next moment, he had pulled out an exquisite Chainblade from within his dimensional pocket. He swung the weapon a few times and its tip scraped against the stone floor.

"You and I have a score to settle and before this day is through, one of us will be dead!" roared Alvin, and he sprang forward to attack. The man stopped him, however, by pulling out the crystal containing Elise's soul.

"Ah, ah, ah, careful now. Wouldn't want to break this now, would we? You know it wasn’t very easy keeping tabs on you all these years. If not for the help of your lovely sister’s memories I’d have discovered the little spell you two used to keep tabs on each other." Alvin froze at his words and gritted his teeth.

“You know, it was quite smart to have a system in place like that. She always was a bit frail, wasn’t she? Having such a caring big brother there to bail her out of sticky situations was quite handy. Such a shame that her little technique led me right to you isn’t it?”

Alvin was shuddering in anger and frustration as the man talked but Cypher had been waiting for an opening just this. While the man was distracted with his gloating, he channeled all of the Zight from his Orrium into his Zight Stanza all at once. It was a risky move to do if he had planned on an extended battle, but that was the last thing on his mind.

Empowerment filled every fiber of his being and as his muscles contracted, Cypher shot forward with blinding speed that far surpassed his rank. At this velocity, everything seemed to be in slow motion for Cypher. The Order member was quick, but with this burst of ridiculous speed, Cypher was faster.

Alvin and the soul trapper could only watch as Cypher dashed over, grabbed the crystal, and returned to Alex and Melodi's side. Even then Cypher’s movements had been only a blur as far as he was concerned. The whole action had taken only a second and Cypher had covered a distance of over 180 meters round trip.

Cypher collapsed to the ground and heaved. He had managed to steal the only leverage this Order member had over Alvin, but it had cost him dearly. His Orrium was completely empty, his legs were broken, and several of his leg muscles had torn completely apart. His skin was also extremely hot and Cypher cried out in pain as waves of agony rocketed through his body.

His mental energy had also dropped to below half, as it had been consumed to allow him the perception to pull off his stunt. However, held tightly in his hand was the crystal, and it glowed a bright pink as Cypher stared down at it.

"You little shit! How dare you!" The soul trapper screamed and dashed towards Cypher, but Alvin had already moved to intercept him and left a long gash across his cheek. The soul trapper stumbled back, clutching his fresh wound and Alvin flashed a wicked smile and flourished the whip-like Chainblade.

"You have nothing on me now you piece of garbage. Get ready to die!" said Alvin, his voice sinister and unmerciful.

The soul trapper laughed, "I don't need leverage to kill you, dear Alvin, it was just fun to torment you for all these years. I may have lost my little distraction, but it looks like your speed demon over there paid dearly for it."

Alvin glanced over at Cypher and saw the state he was in. Alex and Melodi were tending to him, but they couldn't do much to help. This would make things difficult for him. This battle was bound to be tremendous and if Cypher couldn't move, he would be in danger of being crushed under falling debris.

"Alex! Catch!" Alvin threw Alex his last healing pill, and Alex fumbled with the small pill but managed to catch it. He had lifted Cypher up and was supporting him on his shoulders which had made the catch that much more difficult.

The soul trapper wasted no more time after that and engaged Alvin directly. He had pulled his own weapon, a hooked cutlass, and was swinging it in time with Alvin’s flailing Chainblade. Each blow as the two weapons connected sent vibrations throughout the room and caused dust to fall from the ceiling.

The two then vanished in a blur of movement, clashing with each other all over the room. It seemed like they were evenly matched when it came to combat, but what about spells? Alvin reared back and extended his hand, from it flew dozens of condensed water bullets.

The soul trapper dodged or blocked them all and returned fire with a spell of his own. As if to mock Alvin, he chose to use earth bullets and Alvin also avoided any direct hits. Next, the soul trapper resorted to another spell.

This time, his hands glowed with yellow light as the seals of his spell took form and he dashed forward, his weapon stored back in his dimensional pocket. Fists of stone appeared above his shoulders, each tipped with long deadly spikes. He launched them forward at high speed, and Alvin dodged one, which continued on into the back wall and came to a stop with a thunderous crash.

The other had been cut cleanly in half by Alvin's Chainblade, and Alvin whipped around in a circle, the whip-like pieces flowing all around him. Alvin chanted his own spell and each segment sloshed with boiling water and blue light as he spun closer to the Order member.

The attack made contact and shredded the front of his robes, while also leaving deep gashes in his opponent’s flesh. Alvin and the soul trapper jumped apart several meters and stared each other down. The fight was going smoothly for Alvin, but the soul trapper wasn't beaten just yet.

During all of this, Alex, Melodi, and Cypher had moved to a safer distance, and Alex had fed Cypher the healing pill. Cypher had eaten it quickly and his dire wounds began to heal instantly. His legs popped back into place as the bones melded together, and the stringy muscles reconnected to their proper places.

You'll notice a clear lack of the normal messages in the author's notes. That's because I still need your help. I'm facing an emergency and if you can help it would mean the world to me. I won't go into details here but I will leave this link to my gofundme https://gofund.me/3eeb6afa If you can't help directly, sharing the link around is more than incredible. I absolutely hate doing this but the dire situation calls for dire action.

Given the circumstances, I only have access to my laptop and PC on and off. During this time I won't be able to upload chapters as regularly or possibly even at all. As such when I return I'll be dumping a lot of chapters to make up for the lost time, so I hope you guys don't mind the wait. I'm trying to line up a few chapters here and there and I'm hoping that by then things will be clearing up for me soon IRL but if not we'll go from there. I don't plan on dropping the story any time soon.