That left a gash along the hand’s arm and ripped a hole in the side of the hall’s wall, but an automatic sealing bulkhead blocked off the void before it could suck the rest of the air out of the hall.

  The Enemy, with access to the Hand’s old cards, fortified itself to match Jace. The Hand had been heavy on attack and Curse cards, and Jace counted seven cards, which the Hand all triggered in quick succession.

  Shards of black mirrors erupted from portals behind the Enemy, flying toward Jace. A spear of black Aes enclosed on him from either side, and black vines raced up from the floor. More lightning arced down from overhead, and a crashing Curse of obsidian water poured in from behind, all trying to hit him.

  He used [Questforger] to predict where the attacks would land, dodging most of it. A few droplets of the Curse landed on him, but he resisted whatever the effect was. A black mirror sheared away one of the fingers of his mechanical hand, and a spear pierced his thigh. It wasn’t critical, but it slowed him down.

  The Enemy laughed, then snapped its fingers. Some of its cards were already off cooldown, and it was ready for another barrage—just as [Questforger] sputtered out. Panting, Jace stumbled backward and raised his arms, ready to deal with whatever the Hand was planning on throwing at him next.

  Then LeeKay clacked, alerting Jace that [Purify] was ready again. He spat the card out a slot on the top of his head, and Jace caught it, snatching it out of the air. He didn’t trigger it right away.

  They were losing. As it was, the Enemy was going to beat them. Maybe they’d die as heroes, and everyone would assume they were victorious. But maybe it would take a hundred years, and maybe a thousand, but eventually, the Enemy would return.

  The same certainty as before raced through him, and maybe it was naïve, but he whispered to LeeKay, “You’ve done all you can. Go get the Gull. This ship is falling apart, and when we win, we’ll need a way out.”

  The Enemy said, “You don’t ever presume you will lose, do you? Such arrogance!” It rushed forward, trying to impale him. It would’ve worked if Lessa hadn’t blasted it in the chest with a surge of supercharged plasma, keeping it back for a few more seconds—long enough for Jace to get out of the way and for LeeKay to race off, running back to the Gull.

  “I’d rather be hopeful,” Jace gasped, trying not to limp. It was hard not to. “What else can I do?”

  “You can die! What is the point of even existing, only to perpetuate the same cycles over and over again! Let it all disappear!”

  It was a larger fragment of the Enemy than he’d ever dealt with before, filled with the power of the Hand. It was right—this was arrogant. But arrogantly naïve, in all the ways only a human could be. Not some godly magic system.

  Hope and naïvity was probably the only thing keeping Jace alive right now.

  He winced, slamming his eyes shut. A pulse of resonance raced up his spine, much like with the last revelations, but like a word on the tip of his tongue, something greater lingered behind it. Everything was in place. He’d balanced the Split, and that meant he could find his proper enlightenment. Enlightenment that wasn’t going to handicap his willpower entirely.

  Why stay alive? Why keep fighting? What was the meaning of it all?

  He had to sever himself partways—but that didn’t mean cutting off all his attachments or reasons to live. It meant condensing and finding the most important reasons, while burning everything else away.

  What did it mean to live?

  The Enemy wanted to return everything to nothing, because that was everything’s fate, right? A state of chaos. A manifestation of entropy.

  But life didn’t obey those rules. Life was organized and orderly. To live was to resist entropy. He couldn’t say whether it was important to purge all chaos from the galaxy. But, distilled down to its one core component, that was his purpose and destiny—to resist the destruction of life. His own, and of others.

  A flame erupted around his core, and in a flash, it spread to the surrounding channels. Jace was ready to advance.

  Finally, he’d found something to make his spirit burn.

  Or better yet, he now understood what had always been burning, from the very beginning.

  57

  BALANCE

  Setting all his Aes on fire was possibly the most painful experience of his life, but given what he’d just done this past month—and how many times he’d been stabbed in the chest these past two months—it was really hard to tell.

  But burning all his Aes channels, that was up there.

  In his mental perception, blue flame erupted across every pathway Aes could take in his body. It didn’t matter that he’d only reached the third stage of Spirit Burning officially. Over the past three days—at least, what felt like the past three days—he’d faced the Enemy. He’d understood what it was, and what merging it with the Split meant.

  And he’d understood what the Split was now becoming. The nature of its new balance. He’d jumped six stages, and with his final revelation, he was advancing.

  It didn’t take any work on his part, not after the advancement. The flame spread without his willpower, blasting all across his body and reaching for his core.

  That was what would happen if the Split was out of balance. That would be enough to make him advance normally. But he’d put the Split in balance so he didn’t have to undergo this process of enlightenment-taken-too-far.

  He reigned the flames in with a surge of willpower. He wasn’t going to let himself disconnect, to distance himself from what it meant to live.

  Sure, life was the process of resisting chaos. But that meant that the natural ways of life were necessary for such resistance to take place. He had to love, he had to be sentimental, he had to trust his gut, and he had to protect the people he could. Otherwise he was no better than the Enemy.

  He isolated his core, protecting the tree within while the rest of his Aes burned. But instead of burning out of control, it flared with strength. The flames crawled inside his channels, creating whirling bars of energy—and the pain faded in an instant.

  Then, with a surge of force, it locked in place. The universe resonated as Jace advanced to Deity-Making.

  His eyes slammed open, and blue light surged out.

  All the exhaustion of the past days of fighting fragments of the Enemy faded away, replaced with a calm certainty.

  He triggered [Purify]. It was time to finish this, once and for all. “Lessa,” he said. “On my mark, I’m going to need a few plasma blasts.”

  “I’ve got three left,” she said.

  “You dare to openly plan in front of me?” the Enemy screeched, using the Hand’s body but its own voice. “Enough of this. Ants like you cannot compare to⁠—”

  Jace triggered [Impact Channel] then [Questforger], targeting the Enemy and marking it, then running through solution after solution in his mind, trying to predict its future and pinpoint what it was going to do.

  Before, it probably wouldn’t have worked. The card might not have even been able to predict what the Enemy was going to do, given how far out of the regular realm of existence it was and how far removed it was from the Split.

  But now, with the scales of the universe balanced, he was simply asking the fundamental laws of the universe what a fragment of itself was about to do. It knew exactly what it was going to do, and who was it to withhold that from Jace, its champion?

  There was no contest anymore. Jace evaded every attack. It tried to hit Lessa, but he knew exactly when it was going to throw a pulse of shadow or try to surround her with black shards of fragmented void. He did his job as a front-liner and stopped the attacks before they started, and what digit through, he used [Veins of the Universe] to stop.

  Jace cut off the Enemy’s arm, then slashed it down the leg. He didn’t aim for its organs, because that wouldn’t do anything. When it tried to retaliate, he called for Lessa, and she blasted it in the chest, preventing it from hitting him with the sheer amount of energy her plasma rifle exerted.

  With [Radiance] active, he had the strength to push the Enemy back to the front wall of the starship.

  Then he struck the Enemy so hard in the chest, moving in tandem with Lessa, that they blasted it through the metal wall behind them and flung it out into the void. It tried to shout something, but Jace couldn’t hear it. It was probably gloating about how it couldn’t be beating.

  Jace didn’t need to beat it. He just needed to release the fragment and let it merge with the rest of the Split.

  With all the impact of the rest of his cards stored in [Impact Channel], he triggered the card again, ignoring the temporary spatial rift, then ripped the three Halcyon Spears out of the superweapon. Two were exactly like the spear they’d recovered from Ifskar, and the last was his rifle.

  Air rushed out through the gap, and Jace’s feet slipped. His Resistance was high, but not enough to stop the call of the void. He only had one shot at this, then he had to jump away with a hyperdash.

  He pressed the spears all together and triggered [Wanderer’s Banishment], launching them out toward the Enemy, utilizing their increased impact.

  They flashed through his floating body, ripping him apart and destroying what remained of the Hand. The fragment of the Enemy tried to rush toward them, but every second it travelled, it dissipated, turning into a wisp of black mist, then disappearing entirely as the rest of the Split forced it to merge back into itself.

  Jace used a hyperdash to escape the hole in the hull, but with every second, more air rushed out, and the rip grew. “Run!” he shouted.

  He and Lessa dove through the viewing gallery’s door—and just in time for an emergency bulkhead to close behind them, slamming shut and cutting off the flow. Or, Jace had thought it was just in time until he stood up and saw Lessa holding a lever. She’d sealed the doors off.

  Jace exhaled, then looked down. A sheet of glowing orange light (that was probably from merging the Enemy and the Split—the colour had changed slightly) erupted in front of him, reading:

  [DESTINED Quest complete: Kill The Generous Hand in the Shadows. Reward: survival.]

  [Congratulations, CHAMPION. You have completed all DESTINED Quests. With your duty fulfilled, your homeworld will be integrated slowly and naturally into the Split.]

  He couldn’t guarantee that they’d survive yet, though. He took a quick glance at his main status. He had a hundred and eighty attribute shards to distribute from advancing, and he’d reached ‘Deity-Making Stage 1 (0.001%)’ for advancement progress.

  Then, he said, “Something tells me this ship isn’t going to last long.”

  “No, and we need to get back to Kinath-Aertes,” Lessa replied. “The rest of the Alliance is still there.”

  “Without the Hand’s gloryship…”

  “It’ll still be a close fight.”

  Jace nodded, then said, “Let’s see if LeeKay can find us.”

  They ran to the nearest hangar. LeeKay knew to bring the Gull up to the front, and he’d aim for the closest hangar, which would be the flank hangar on the starboard side. When they arrived, Jace was expecting to find a ground crew in chaos, trying to frantically abandon ship, but the Alliance crew members were dutifully working.

  These were the best, most fanatically devoted servants of the Hand. Of course they wouldn't abandon ship.

  When Jace and Lessa sprinted across, a few soldiers and crew members tried to leap into their path or challenge them, but they barely slowed Jace down at all. He and Lessa stopped at the very front of the hangar—and just in time for LeeKay to fly the Gull through.

  Most of the turrets on the outside of the ship were inactive, and nothing stopped him as he jerkily flew the Gull through the hangar entrance. A few ground crew soldiers tried to shoot at the Gull, but its shields had regenerated enough to block the blasts.

  The Gull landed right in front of Jace and Lessa, and the cockpit canopy popped open. Jace jumped in, and Lessa jumped in right behind. “If we had him flying any longer,” she said, “the little ship would’ve run out of coals. No one was stoking it.”

  Jace swallowed, realizing how close they had been to stranding themselves, then slammed the viewscreen shut and took off again, escaping the hangar.

  As they flew away from the Gloryship, its hull ruptured. Its reactors were failing, and its engines dimmed. Jace was expecting a massive explosion, but it only stalled, floating lifelessly toward the gap left in the Wall, where it would drift into the hundreds of thousands of dark worlds, a feast for orcs and kobolds and whatever other agents of the Enemy waited out there for them.

  “It’s going beyond the Wall,” Lessa warned.

  “I hate to leave them to their fate…” Jace grimaced. “But we have bigger problems. Let’s get back to Kinath-Aertes and see if we can’t help turn the tide.”

  They launched the Gull through hyperspace, and with Jace linked to the controls, the jump only took about five minutes.

  When they arrived, the battle had calmed slightly. There had been no formations for the loss of the Hand’s Gloryship to break, but it had freed up Realm ships to help out elsewhere. Jace and Lessa flew the Gull around the edges of the battle, using hyperjumps and blasting straggling starfighters.

  The fight lasted for another half hour before the remnants of the Alliance fleet understood that they were beaten. They launched off into hyperspace if they could—otherwise, a few of them struck their colours, shut off their thrusters, and projected a holographic flag of surrender between their smokestacks.

  Jace wasn’t sure where to land, given how damaged the city was, and the Gull was running out of fuel. No one tried to stop them, however, when they landed in front of the Artanor Hall and the Citadel Tower.

  Cautiously, he popped the cockpit canopy open and crossed the plaza, where Realm soldiers were pouring out of the hall on the other side. With the fighting on the ground slowing, they seemed more relaxed, but they still spread out, their weapons raised high.

  Ash and Perril sprinted out from the, running to Jace and Lessa. As soon as he reached them, Ash said, “Did you do it?”

  “Considering they’re alive…” Perril said. “And considering how powerful Jace is, I’d say they did it, aye.”

  Jace nodded. “It’s done. The Hand is gone, and the Enemy is no more.”

  58

  CLEANING UP

  Jace wandered the capital city for a few hours after the battle with Lessa. He wasn’t feeling tired anymore, and neither was she. Even if the exhaustion did finally catch up with him—advancing could only do so much to help—he wasn’t sure if his mind would shut off and actually let him sleep.

  They cleaned up the remnants of the Alliance ground forces, and they searched around for Kinfild and Ken, and especially for the Luna Wrath. Jace had to admit it: he was attached to that ship.

  As the day drew to a close and the sun began to set, he and Lessa returned to the Artanor hall, where Ash and Perril were coordinating efforts to find survivors, empty the bunkers, uncover buried bunkers, and prepare the fleet for a potential counter-attack from the Alliance. Jace explained exactly what had happened, before asking, “Where’s Kinfild.”

  “We are here!” a voice boomed from the end of the hall. Kinfild and Ken walked in, stepping toward the throne and the command table confidently. “Jace, when I heard that you made it, I almost didn’t believe it.”

  Jace ran over and caught Kinfild in a hug, then said, “What? You doubted the training you gave me?”

  “Yes. And I feared the strength of the Hand.”

  “We won, Kinfild,” Jace said. “We did it. I promise, the Enemy is gone.”

  “You two look exhausted,” Ken said. “Both of you.”

  Lessa said, “I’ve tried to get him to go to sleep, but he says he’s not tired.”

  Kinfild grabbed Jace by the shoulders and said, “Rest, Jace. It is over. You can relax. We’re safe, and the battle is over.”

  Jace, now knowing that Kinfild had lived, finally agreed to travel to a shelter. It wasn’t much, but they had converted the lower levels of office skytowers into shelters for the survivors, allowing some degree of privacy.

  Jace and Lessa got a tiny room to themselves, which was more than enough, and by the time Jace had taken off his armour, the exhaustion was finally catching up with him. He sat down on the edge of the bedroll, and fell asleep almost immediately.

  The next day, Jace and Lessa returned to the Artanor Hall early in the morning. Ash had a debriefing for everyone to attend, and they were almost late—Jace had slept in. Both of them sprinted as fast as they could, which caused plenty of heads to turn. There were admirals and generals and all sorts of high-ranking officials gathered around.

  They surrounded the table in front of the throne, where, instead of a projection of the battle, it now displayed a holographic map of the galaxy.

  Jace was expecting a few looks of scorn or disapproval—mainly for their boisterous entrance. He was about to kneel, because as he’d learned last night, Ash had finished Lighting the Stars, and by right, he was king of the Realm. (There was a little confusion about why Jace didn’t know last night, and he said it had happened while he was asleep a few weeks ago—it was better than trying to explain that he’d actually run away to a different galaxy to kill Sentinels and seek enlightenment.)

  But, before he could kneel, Ash rushed over and shook his head, then bowed at the waist. “We have you to thank for our existence, Jace. We all know what you did for us.”

  The rest of the people gathered at the table joined Ash in a bow, and Jace wasn’t sure exactly how to return the gesture or what was respectful. After a few seconds, Ash stood, then said, “We were just beginning. As I was saying, my first act as king will be to reinstate the parliament and the Grand Charter. With the First Attendant dethroned, I am the only one with authority to do so. If there’s to be faith in the king, I must show them that I am not going to rule them with an iron fist.”