But here, time pressed on, dome or no dome. I couldn’t feel the outside clock directly, but I knew it was there, ticking forward without mercy while I sat in enforced timeout. Basetown, Tad, Selena, the coming battle—all of it loomed just beyond reach, and the weight of it sat heavy in my chest. This was not about survival anymore. It was about proving that I could stand where the Ways were asking me to stand.

  I tested my awareness again, this time pushing outward without activating any spell or ability, extending perception through will alone. The keep responded faintly, old stone and buried intent brushing back against my senses without hostility. Whatever waited above was not rushing me, and that made it worse. This floor was patient, confident that I would come when called.

  When the dome finally dropped, it did so without drama. The golden light thinned, then vanished, as if it had never existed, leaving the air unchanged and the room exactly as it had been. For a heartbeat, there was nothing but silence.

  Then a voice echoed through the keep, calm and absolute, carrying condemnation and fury.

  “Come to me, you who would corrupt the purity of my vision!”

  Chapter Sixty-Seven: Death Knight

  We moved toward one of the towers without discussion, the path feeling as though it were chosen for us. I was getting used to it, to the point where it didn’t bother me now. The entrance stood open, the archway tall and narrow, stone cut with a precision that made the rest of the keep look crude by comparison. I expected resistance at the threshold, some final test of reflex or vigilance, but there was nothing. The silence greeted us like an invitation. The voice that had uttered the challenge was silent.

  The first level was still recognizably part of the ruin. Stone blocks were aligned but worn, the mortar darkened by age. Faint discolorations marked where banners or fixtures had once hung. Even so, the decay felt restrained, as if it had been allowed only where it did not offend the structure’s underlying order. I could feel the shift already, a tightening in the geometry of the space that made my steps sound too even.

  As we climbed higher, that sense intensified. Each level shed another layer of imperfection. Cracks smoothed out, walls straightened, and angles sharpened until everything felt measured and intentional. There was no rubble, no piles of discarded rusty weapons, no sign that anything had ever been abandoned here at all. The chaos and rot that had defined the lower levels gave way to a cold, meticulous symmetry that made my skin itch.

  By the time we reached the upper floors, the stone was flawless. There was no dust to stir underfoot, no chips or erosion, not even the faint scuff of previous passage. The walls reflected torchlight evenly, as though polished, and the air itself felt clean in a way that had nothing to do with freshness. The place looked like it could have been built yesterday, which was odd, because there had been no hint of it from the outside. It was the absence of entropy, and that absence was profoundly unsettling.

  What bothered me most was the lack of opposition. No traps sprang, no guardians emerged, and no spells tested our reactions. But I felt intent pressing down on us from above, a steady, patient awareness that did not need us to hurry. The path upward seemed intent on helping us focus, but it also allowed what had to be the aura of an ascendant to press down on us more efficiently. Whatever waited for us was stronger than the lich we’d defeated. It felt… fresher, for lack of a better term.

  Felania’s steps slowed with each level. Her shoulders drew inward, and she stopped looking around entirely, gaze fixed on the stone directly ahead of her feet. The trembling returned in small, involuntary shudders that she did not seem aware of, and when I glanced at her with Spirit Sight, her presence felt more constrained, like a piece of paper folded too many times. She was practically a walking panic attack.

  Violet broke the silence on the final set of stairs. “This place is messing with my head,” she muttered, voice low. She pulled her flask free, took a long swallow, and rolled her shoulders as if shaking off a weight that had settled there. It helped, but only barely, and I could see the effort it took for her to keep moving.

  I was halfway tempted to ask her for a swig of whatever was in there.

  The pressure brushed against me as well, probing for purchase. My titles, my Will, and the sheer stubborn refusal that had carried me this far blunted it before it could sink in, but that did not mean I was immune. I felt it, like a hand resting on my back, not pushing yet, just reminding me that it was there. By the time we reached the final landing, I understood that the ascent itself had been part of the test, a means of stripping away distractions until nothing remained but intent and resolve.

  The final door opened without resistance, and the space beyond it unfolded in a way that made my stomach tighten. What should have been a single chamber expanded outward, impossibly vast, the interior swallowing light and distance until I stood at the edge of a massive arena. Tiered stands rose in sweeping arcs, filled to capacity with figures clad in the colors of the Order, their faces turned inward as they cheered in perfect, synchronized rhythm. The sound rolled over me like surf, loud but hollow, carrying none of the warmth of living voices.

  I reached out with Spirit Sight and felt the truth settle into place. The crowd was not alive. They were impressions, echoes pressed into the fabric of the space, remnants of belief and devotion given shape but not substance. They radiated conviction without will, a collective memory replaying itself endlessly.

  At the center of the arena stood a lone figure. He wore jet-black armor that drank in the light, its surface smooth and immaculate, and on his chest was a sunburst worked in white and gold that mirrored the Order’s symbol while inverting it completely. The design was familiar, yet alien, like a reflection seen through darkened glass. He did not move, and the space around him felt anchored, as though the arena had been built with him as its axis.

  Felania collapsed the instant we crossed the threshold. Her knees buckled and she crumpled to the floor, trembling so violently that her armor clinked against the stone. She hugged herself tight, eyes wide and unfocused, and no sound came from her throat no matter how hard she tried to speak. Whatever stood before us had stripped away the last of her composure—again. Finally, just as I looked away from her, I heard her mumbling. “Not again. Not my family.”

  Violet reacted on instinct. She moved laterally, planting herself between Felania and the arena floor, her weapon coming up as she scanned for threats that had not yet shown themselves. Her posture was defensive but controlled, the stance of someone bracing for something she could not yet quantify. I felt a flicker of relief that she had not frozen.

  I extended my senses toward the man in black and felt a brush of divinity. It was there, unmistakable, but muted, like a star seen through heavy clouds. This was not a god standing before me, nor even a full ascendant, but an echo of one, a memory reinforced by belief and repetition. Even so, the weight of his presence pressed against my awareness with quiet authority. I knew without having to be told that this was some sort of twisted reflection of the Lawgiver. That being said, I had no clue what the Ways were trying to show me.

  I could admit to a moment of fear. Even a memory of a god carried power. What was it that I’d heard in that old show? That which bears the image of an angel will an angel become. I wondered if that applied here.

  The Death Knight, for that was the only type of undead this could be, lifted his head and fixed his gaze on me. When he spoke, his voice carried easily across the arena despite the roar of the crowd. “You’ve probably figured this out by now, but this is a representation of the past from a certain perspective. It is meant to help you determine your commitment to the war in front of you, and to help you learn about yourself. Before I left mortality behind me, I was a champion of the Order, but I saw all too clearly how limited their view was. Why compromise? ‘Tis the poison which stops the heart.

  “So I took that which only I knew how to use correctly, from one who called himself a herald. I moved beyond what was offered. I became more, and even this memory of me is more than you can handle. Yet if you have reached me, you’ve proven yourself to be competent in the handling of magic. The question before you is, how well can you do without it?”

  With those words, I felt the world around me shift. I’d lived more than twenty years without even believing that magic was real, but it had become such a part of me that this aura was crushing. I didn’t have a clue how it worked.

  The anti-magic field slammed down like a coffin lid, cutting me off from mana so completely that it left me dizzy. Every familiar current went silent at once. Spells were snuffed before thought could finish forming. Save for Winter might as well have been a story I once heard, and the comforting weight of prepared answers vanished. I couldn’t even summon the tiny bit of magic necessary to withdraw Wayfinder from storage. I stood there with nothing but my body, my will, and the sound of my own breathing.

  My enemy didn’t move, at least not yet. He seemed to enjoy standing there, watching me realize my predicament. My body was still superhuman. I still had my skills, but none of my magic or abilities. What bothered me the most was that anti-magic was still magic by its very nature. That had always felt like an inconsistency in any game I’d played or book I’d read. It was simply a magic which banished all other magic from a given area.

  By that logic, if I could manipulate the mana that empowered this field, I should be able to cut it off. At least, that was my thought until he spoke again.

  “Let us see if you can keep your companions alive for a full minute.”

  He charged the instant the last word left his mouth, crossing the arena with terrifying speed, sword already in motion and shield angled to punish any hesitation. I dove across his line, grabbing a long, blunt practice blade from a rack and turning just in time to catch his first strike. The impact hammered through my arms and into my spine, and I skidded backward as stone chipped beneath my boots.

  He was faster than my base physical limits allowed, and he knew it. He cut at me twice in rapid succession, forcing my guard high, then slammed his shield into my chest, sending me reeling. I caught myself with a stagger and twisted back into his path, intercepting a thrust aimed past me toward Violet. The edge clipped my shoulder and burned down to bone, but I stayed between him and the others.

  The crowd’s roar rolled over us, and he fed on it. His sword carved precise lines meant to break joints and open arteries, and his shield punished every imperfect block. I parried, redirected, and absorbed blows with my body when I had to, feeling ribs creak and muscles tear. Each exchange cost me blood, and each step backward brought him closer to Violet and Felania.

  My body still regenerated, but it was slower than normal, and I didn’t have Celestial Restoration to call upon. A battle of attrition was sure to be my undoing here. Undead could function with a far more damaged body than I could.

  I tried to counter with strength and timing, driving the borrowed blade into his guard and shoving him back a pace. He responded by twisting his shield and snapping my weapon in half with a contemptuous wrench. The broken length fell from my hand, and the loss hit harder than the pain in my arm. He advanced without pause, arrogant and relentless. It pissed me off and made me dig deeper.

  Instinct took over where preparation had failed. I reached for Wayfinder without mana, without command, and felt the primordial bond answer like a clenched fist opening. The spear tore through the thin dimensional barrier that separated me from Save for Winter, slamming into my grip with a familiar balance that steadied me. I thrust immediately, forcing him to raise his shield and give ground, and for a few precious seconds, the fight evened out.

  53 seconds remaining

  We circled in tight arcs, steel ringing as spear met sword and shield. I used reach to keep him honest, snapping quick jabs at his chest and angling cuts toward his legs. He blocked most of it, but I felt the rhythm shift as he respected the weapon. My lungs burned and my vision narrowed, yet I held him away from the others. We’d already had more than a thousand exchanges in a handful of seconds. I was breathing heavier than normal, and even now I realized that my body was going to be tested even more harshly than my magic had been.

  As I came to that realization, he smiled, and it sent a chill down my spine.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight: Unity

  The next change in his tactics was sudden and brutal. His speed surged and his strength followed, each strike landing with an extra measure of force that crushed my guard and jarred my bones. I backpedaled under the onslaught, parrying on instinct alone, Wayfinder vibrating with every impact. He battered me across the arena in a storm of steel, never letting me reset.

  I lunged to intercept another feint toward Felania and barely made it in time. His blade scraped past me and still reached Violet, carving a deep line across her side. She cried out and fell back hard, blood dark against the stone. The sound tore something loose inside me, and I slammed into him with everything I had left, driving the spear into his shield and forcing him back a step.

  He recovered almost instantly and answered with a shield bash that knocked the breath from me and sent me sprawling. I rolled to my knees, dragging air into my lungs, and raised Wayfinder just in time to stop the next strike from taking my head. The minute was nowhere near over, and I was bleeding, exhausted, and barely holding the line.

  35 seconds remaining

  I planted my feet anyway and set myself between him and the others, spear leveled and shaking in my grip. The Death Knight advanced with measured steps, confidence radiating from him as the crowd roared in approval. I could feel time slipping away and my body failing me, but I did not move aside. Whatever happened next, I would make him go through me to reach them.

  I realized it in the middle of a parry that nearly tore my arm from its socket. I hadn’t died yet because I wasn’t blind. Every feint, every sudden acceleration, every shift of weight from the Death Knight reached me a fraction of a heartbeat before it happened. I hadn’t consciously activated anything, but Precognition had been running anyway, fed by Psi rather than mana. That awareness snapped into focus, and with it came a grim sort of clarity.

  I leaned into it.

  Psi flooded my muscles as I expanded its use, not just to see what was coming, but to meet it. Physical Enhancement surged through me, raw and unrefined, forcing my body to answer demands it had no right to sustain. My speed climbed until I could finally stay in front of the Death Knight instead of reacting from behind. Strength followed, my blows landing harder, my blocks no longer shattering under the first impact.

  The arena rang with the sound of metal on metal as we collided again and again. I drove Wayfinder forward in sharp, efficient thrusts, forcing him to respect the weapon while he battered me with shield and blade. Each exchange left new pain blooming across my body, but now I could trade blows instead of simply endure. The Death Knight’s strikes still landed harder than mine, but no longer by an impossible margin.

  I was still coming up short. Worse, while I could regenerate Psi at a rate unaffected by the anti-magic field, I was burning it faster than the tank was refilling. Another attack came in low and fast, but this time, I met it with a Psi construct. It mirrored one I’d used many times with Force Construct Mastery, angled to knock him off balance.

  What gave me hope was the way that he didn’t seem aware of the Psi construct until his blade had been deflected. “What trickery is this?” he roared.

  For a moment, I thought he assumed I was using magic, but then he said, “That should be my birthright, not that of some nameless outsider.”

  A new fury lit within him, and while I might have had less than twenty seconds left in the test, there was little chance I could stand up to him for that long, at least not as I was right now.

  I reached again for my primordial aspect out of instinct, trying to tap into that deep, ancient well that had answered me before. With that power unleashed, I could wipe away his entire existence. The entire arena, for that matter. It was the type of power that would make me a match for a god, and more than the memory of one could bear.

  Nothing came. The block was absolute, a wall I could feel but not even scratch, and the effort cost me precious focus. I staggered as a shield edge crushed into my ribs, breath exploding out of me in a bloody gasp. I didn’t have time to try for it any longer. Instead, I focused on my other options.

  Blood ran freely now. My legs trembled under me, and even with Psi enhancement, my movements began to lag. Each step felt heavier than the last, joints screaming as damage stacked faster than I could compensate. I could feel my body approaching failure, systems overtaxed, muscles tearing faster than they could knit.

  So I went deeper.

  I turned inward, past mana, past Psi, down into the core I rarely touched directly. The cultivator’s core resisted me at first, sluggish and reluctant, as if it resented being called upon in this place. I forced it anyway, will grinding against inertia until it began to spin. Not fully, not cleanly, but enough.

  Raw life force surged through me like a flood breaking a dam. Heat and vitality burned through torn muscle and fractured bone, sealing wounds just enough to keep me upright. The pain didn’t vanish, but it dulled, pushed aside by the sheer insistence of life refusing to end. I sucked in a ragged breath and straightened, feeling strength return in a rough, uneven wave. For a moment, I felt like I’d just chugged an entire jug of pre-workout mixed with Red Bull.

  The Death Knight hesitated for the first time. I couldn’t afford to let this go to waste. I was on a roll. Physical might, Psi, and now raw life force. What other options did I have that wouldn’t require me to use mana? My mind knew the answer instantly. I hated Vitae and what it represented. It was life force in its own way, but it always had to be taken with violence, and the more suffering involved, the purer the Vitae. It was evil in my eyes, and those who used it risked their souls, but as Grandma Renner used to say, beggars can’t be choosers.