Tunde wasn’t sure he’d ever felt this kind of anguish before.

  It was different. Not like the pain of losing comrades in battle. Not like the hollow ache of watching friends and loved ones die.

  This was something older. Deeper. A wound that had never truly healed, only scabbed over with time and forced smiles. And now, it had been torn wide open, raw and bleeding.

  And heavens, it hurt.

  The abomination that was Joran surged forward, a blur of metallic limbs and twisted spirit.

  Dozens of legs moved with impossible speed, slamming into the ground as the creature lunged.

  Tunde raised his axe—Shadowfang—and barely blocked the blow.

  His footing broke under the impact, and he was hurled backwards, skidding across the chamber with a grunt.

  He tried to reshape the weapon back into his naginata. Nothing happened.

  Of course. Of course it wouldn’t obey, not now, not with this axe, not with this man before him.

  The body of Joran was a Master at peak realm, and then some.

  Augmented. Reinforced. Warped beyond the realm of nature.

  The others began preparing their techniques behind him, but Tunde’s voice cut through the rising tension—raw, cracked with emotion.

  “No!”

  He forced himself up, legs shaking, but eyes locked on the thing that had once been his mentor.

  “Find a way out, all of you!” he barked.

  His voice left no room for argument.

  Void spears shimmered into existence around him, humming with layered authority.

  He threw himself forward, closing the distance again, evading the lashing whip that extended from Joran’s lower centipede form.

  His Ethra Sight snapped into place, breaking down Joran’s every move with brutal efficiency—angles, force, timing.

  The elder's combat patterns were familiar—techniques once taught to him, now used against him.

  A bright projection of crackling electric-blue Ethra formed around Joran’s frame, replicating movements from his living self. Tunde recognized it.

  Joran’s Wrath.

  So he responded with the same.

  Two techniques collided, lightning and force grinding against one another, until the impact released a deafening shockwave that blew them apart, shaking the room down to its runes.

  Tunde hit the wall hard, rolled to his feet, blood already staining his side. Joran laughed, but there were tears streaming from his eyes, pain in every breath.

  His body moved without consent. His soul screamed with every attack.

  “Please... end me,” Joran pleaded, barely able to speak through the weeping.

  Tunde’s hands clenched around Shadowfang.

  He hated this weapon.

  He hated everything about what it represented—betrayal, weakness, failure.

  And yet he raised it again.

  “I’ll tear him limb from limb,” Tunde growled, Ethra flaring to life like a raging inferno.

  His aura surged, raw and primal. His arms shook not with fear, but with a fury that blurred the edges of his vision.

  “You’ve grown stronger, Tunde,” Joran said, his voice distant but sincere.

  “Stronger than I could have imagined.”

  Then his lower body coiled, metal scraping against the stone floor.

  He struck.

  Tunde barely dodged as the monstrosity lunged again, each movement more unhinged than the last.

  In the corner of his vision, Tunde saw Zhu and Sera standing in defensive formation, protecting the others.

  Elyria knelt at the boundary of the glowing barrier, fingers dancing across glowing runes in a desperate attempt to unravel them.

  Rhyn stood back, eyes sharp, unreadable—watching as if trying to understand something that didn’t fit into his worldview.

  Tunde didn’t care.

  This was his fight.

  This was his nightmare.

  “You don’t understand,” Joran cried, even as he attacked.

  “That bastard, he’s been watching you. Studying you. Every breath, every failure... every triumph. All of it. Hidden in the dark, feeding off you.”

  His aura twisted, and his dominion erupted outward.

  Gravity.

  A crushing weight slammed down on Tunde. The air thickened. His knees buckled. The floor cracked beneath him as the very world tried to crush him into submission.

  But Tunde refused.

  He called upon his force aspect, pushing against the gravity with all his strength. Muscles bulged, Ethra screamed across his skin.

  Shadowfang moved again, blow after punishing blow as sparks flew from every clash.

  Their battle became a blur of motion and noise, each movement threatening to collapse the room around them.

  “I’m sorry,” Tunde said, through clenched teeth.

  Joran hesitated.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough. Fast enough. I wasn’t there to help you.”

  Metal legs slammed into him again—sharp, brutal.

  Gashes opened across Tunde’s chest and arms. Blood sprayed, but he didn’t slow. His void dominion flared, tearing through the gravitational suppression, unraveling Joran’s hold on the space.

  He pressed forward, every step a roar of resistance.

  The whip lashed at him again.

  This time, he caught it.

  Lightning surged through his body, pure power channeled straight into Tunde’s body as he spasmed. Tunde didn’t let go.

  His eyes were wild now, filled with tears and fury.

  “You don’t get to die until I make it right.”

  “You’ve done enough, Tunde,” Joran said softly, his voice a blend of pain and peace.

  “You were always strong.”

  As he spoke, his arms shifted, transformed, both limbs reshaping into blades of Ethereon, a fusion of lightning and pure metal Ethra.

  The glow of the corrupted authority coursed through them like dying stars.

  “Now end me... Dark Fist,” Joran pleaded.

  Tunde clenched his jaw. He wished he couldn’t. He wished he didn’t have the strength. But he did. And that was the worst part.

  Perhaps Borus had underestimated him, again. But none of that mattered now. Not power. Not potential. Not vengeance. All that mattered was that he had found his first teacher... and he had failed him.

  His void realm responded to his anguish, coalescing into a cocoon of black ice that wrapped around them both, shutting out the world. Isolating them in silence. It was a tomb, a shrine, a moment carved from sorrow itself.

  Within that darkness, his shoulders shook violently.

  Tears fell freely.

  He cried, not just for Joran, but for himself. For everything they’d lost. Everything they’d never get back.

  And the void, ever patient, ever consuming, absorbed every sob, every trembling breath, every broken heartbeat.

  He collapsed to his knees, his weapon forgotten, his head bowed in agony.

  Above him, the frozen form of Joran stirred slightly. The elder’s face, half-human, half-warped construct, was still locked in pain.

  With a slow, deliberate motion, he forced the ice to recede from his face.

  He exhaled.

  “I don’t have much time,” he began.

  “So listen.”

  “Elder, I—”

  “Listen!” Joran snapped, his voice cutting through the grief like a blade.

  Tunde froze. His eyes snapped open.

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  “You... are my greatest regret,” Joran said, voice trembling.

  “And my greatest accomplishment.”

  He took a ragged breath.

  “This body... It’s already trying to free itself. Tapping into corrupted Keeper authority. I can feel it pulling at me, clawing for control.”

  His tone soured with disgust.

  “My regret is that I won’t be there to see you surpass them. I won’t be there to see you kill Borus for what he’s done. To the world... and to you.”

  His voice steadied.

  “But my accomplishment... is that I helped shape the one soul who will. The one who’ll bring the change this world so desperately needs.”

  Joran’s expression softened, even as his features twitched under strain.

  “Look at me, Tunde. I’m nothing now. A copy of a copy. Not even the true master you once followed. Not the blind adept you admired.”

  “But I tell you, here and now, with every piece of will left in me... you’ve made me proud. I’ll go to the Great End with pride in my heart and peace in my spirit.”

  “You are no longer a fist to be wielded. Nor a wolf that only defends his territory.”

  Joran barked out a laugh—rough, real.

  “I see it in your eyes. Jade Peak. The Wasteland War. Your journey to the capital. And now here. I wasn’t there, but Borus tried to break me with those memories. It backfired. Everyone made me prouder of what you’ve become.”

  Tunde shut his eyes again, unable to hold back the tears. They streamed silently.

  “Pick up your weapon, Tunde,” Joran said gently.

  Tunde blinked. Only then did he realize—he’d dropped Shadowfang.

  He reached for it.

  Slowly. Reverently.

  The moment his fingers wrapped around the haft, Joran’s voice turned sharp again.

  “Now that it’s yours—need I remind you what I once said would happen if you dropped it in training?”

  A laugh broke from Tunde’s throat, bubbling out through his sorrow.

  “You said you’d beat me until I couldn’t move.”

  Joran nodded, his smile lopsided.

  “Damn right.”

  Tunde rose to his feet.

  The axe pulsed.

  Then it shifted, splitting apart and flowing like water.

  His naginata returned to his grip, whole once more.

  He stood tall, eyes locked with the man before him.

  And then he bowed.

  Deep.

  Respectfully.

  “I, Tunde of the Seekers, greet his one true master... Joran, the Blind Tiger who now sees.”

  Joran smiled softly.

  “The Blind Tiger who now sees... acknowledges the Void Devourer.”

  The ice shattered.

  Joran lunged.

  The naginata spun, guided not by rage, but reverence. Tunde let it fly, aura alone holding it in place. The weapon struck true, piercing Joran’s chest in one clean, devastating motion.

  The creature froze mid-charge.

  Joran’s eyes widened for a brief moment.

  Then he looked down at the wound and smiled.

  “Devour them all,” he whispered.

  And with that, he fell.

  Joran's body turned grey—ashen, lifeless, as if the last warmth had been drained from it by the void. The centipede half, twisted and cruel, began to crumble into dust.

  The Ethra that once held it together vanished, unraveling like mist caught in a cold wind.

  Then, with a soft crackling sound, the entire void ice cocoon shattered into glittering shards that scattered into the air.

  Tunde remained kneeling in the center of it all, staring down at the remnants of his teacher.

  The formation barrier sealing them in flickered once—then vanished entirely.

  Still, he didn’t move.

  Joran’s final words echoed in his mind.

  Void Devourer.

  He had been named. Acknowledged. Seen.

  “What now?” Rhyn asked, his voice low and gruff.

  Was that pity in his tone?

  Tunde didn’t answer at first.

  His fists clenched, his knuckles white with rage and sorrow.

  He inhaled slowly, letting the concept of the void cleanse the edges of his mind, drawing out the pain and funneling it into the still-burning center of his will.

  There would be time for grief later.

  Now, there was duty.

  “Bring this pillar down,” he said at last, rising slowly to his feet, his voice sharpened by purpose.

  “We have work to do.”

  Zhu nodded immediately, and the others fell in behind.

  Without another word, techniques began tearing into the structure, burning, freezing, breaking apart the inner framework of the Ark.

  Tunde vanished in a blur, void step propelling him outside and into the air.

  Chaos surrounded him.

  The battle still raged, but he closed his eyes for just a moment and drew in a deep breath, then pushed outward,

  Expanding his dominion.

  It surged across the battlefield like a tide of invisible force, swallowing the sky in his reach.

  It distinguished between friend and foe with surgical precision, marking them by their aura, colors, insignia, and even the direction of their attacks.

  Everyone felt it.

  Lords. Highlords. Masters.

  Those who had been clashing against his allies suddenly found their powers warring not with their enemies, but with him.

  Tunde devoured it all: Ethra, aura, essence flame, and cultivated authority. It streamed into his soulspace, swallowed into the burning inheritance of Alana that sat quietly at its core.

  He opened his eyes.

  Then he looked at his weapon, still in naginata form, considering.

  Maybe it’s time.

  He released it. The weapon hovered for a moment, then shattered into over a dozen curved knives, each glowing with void Ethra.

  They floated behind his shoulders, orbiting clockwise like silent specters.

  He turned his gaze to his right arm, where the ancient fang lay dormant, inked into his skin as a tattoo.

  “Come,” he commanded.

  The black ink rippled, then melted, flowing down his arm before reforming mid-air.

  The naginata reassembled—but this time, it was different.

  Its blade was no longer forged. It was alive. The head of the serpentine creature from his soulspace held the black blade between its teeth, violet eyes gleaming with ancient sentience.

  Runes burned along its length, the very air quivering from the sheer force of his authority now engraved into it.

  Tunde turned his attention back toward the battlefield—toward the enemies marked within his dominion.

  Formations flickered.

  Talismans cracked.

  And all of it—all of it—was leeched into his being.

  Void Devourer.

  It did have a nice ring to it.

  With a silent thought, the knives behind him shot outward in every direction, dozens of streaks of void light that moved faster than thought.

  Each one struck true.

  In a blink, dozens of enemies—Lords, Highlords, even a few unprepared Masters—fell from the skies, their bodies already hollowed out, husks drained of essence and life.

  Their void rings were pulled from their corpses and swallowed into his void space without mercy.

  The battlefield fell silent.

  Reinforcements in the distance froze. Skyvessel commanders paused in horror as the rain of corpses began.

  His allies, hardened warriors who had fought through wars and seen death in every form, turned pale.

  Zhu appeared beside him, voice even but tight with awe.

  “The next Ark?” he asked.

  Tunde didn’t answer right away.

  He looked back briefly at his companions.

  Ifa stood tall, satisfied.

  Elyria was already calculating the battlefield anew, eyes scanning for incoming forces. Sera inspected her blade for chips, as if this were routine.

  Rhyn and Aerin both stared at him with expressions he didn’t care to interpret, part fear, part awe, part something else.

  Didn’t matter.

  None of it did.

  Tunde stepped forward, his voice booming with layered authority that crashed across the battlefield like a war drum:

  “Hear me and heed me.”

  Enemy lines stiffened.

  “I want Borus the Artificer. Bring him to me, and you die quickly, with honor.”

  He raised his weapon.

  “Don’t... and I will do to you what I did to the lambs you sent earlier. You have until I reach you.”

  He took one void step—

  —and appeared directly in front of a Master.

  She reacted instantly, blades flashing toward his head, her aura burning bright with the concepts of flame and edge, each strike honed to sear even a seasoned cultivator to ashes.

  But Tunde was faster.

  He froze her fire with void ice. Her movements slowed, then ceased entirely as he seized her by the throat.

  Her eyes went wide in shock as he drained everything—her Ethra, her aura, her essence, even the last flicker of her authority.

  She collapsed in his grip, a husk, lifeless.

  From above, Skyvessels opened fire in a panic. Lords and Highlords broke formation, fleeing in chaos. Even Masters began to fall back.

  Techniques filled the air.

  Explosions.

  Screams.

  Tunde didn’t flinch.

  His aura surged, manifesting behind him the full image of the serpentine beast.

  Its roar shook the heavens, slamming into the minds of every cultivator within earshot.

  Fear bled through their ranks like ink in water, and as Tunde advanced, his allies surged behind him, their momentum reignited by the storm in his wake.

  This was no longer a siege.

  It was slaughter.

  *****

  Deep behind enemy lines, hidden beneath the floating island of the Arcanists, the Regents gathered—fully assembled now, the last pieces of their twisted alliance locked in place.

  The air shimmered with raw, unfiltered authority, and the heavens above roared with thunder as the convergence continued its violent spiral across the sky.

  The Unorthodox had finally joined them.

  Daishi of the Revenants.

  Raijin of the Asura.

  Shang of the Envoys.

  Daishi was... a horror made flesh.

  A bloated, decaying monstrosity slumped on a throne woven from the preserved skeletons of paragons—still alive, their spirits locked in eternal torment by cursed runes and tainted Ethra scripts.

  His green eyes glowed with baleful light, flickering constantly, never blinking. Around him hovered his remaining paragons, those still loyal to the twisted path he’d carved for the Revenant Cult.

  Not all had agreed with him. Many had defected.

  The rebellion, led by the Soul Paragon himself, had carved a wedge through Daishi’s influence, and still, the Regent festered like a rotting wound at the heart of their ideology.

  Raijin of the Asura stood in contrast, towering, powerful, his crimson hair a burning flame that danced with chaotic fire.

  Two jagged, serrated greatblades rested on his back, coated in pulsing blood-red flames that never extinguished.

  He said nothing, only stared with narrowed eyes at the Arcanist Queen, whose focus never wavered.

  She floated in place, hands in motion, drawing runes into the air with pure strands of refined authority.

  Scripts danced around her like burning spirits, feeding into the grand formation above them, a golden lattice pulsing with lightning, arcing bolts now dancing in a chained spiral across the skies, drawn from the chaotic storm.

  Shang of the Envoys was a specter by comparison—skeletal, his frame barely held together by withered muscle and skin.

  His black, tattered robes fluttered in a wind that did not exist, and long, curled black nails tapped slowly against his palm.

  Despite his fragile appearance, his presence pressed down on the others like a suffocating tide.

  The remaining Regents sat in silent readiness.

  Each waited, watching the skies as the convergence reached toward its final zenith.

  “That... thing,” Ayun of the Mistwalkers muttered, his brow furrowed as he glared toward the battlefield far beyond their sight.

  “It grows stronger. Feeding on our forces like a leech.”

  “And yet, everything you’ve thrown at him fails,” Bashu of the Heralds rumbled, eyes still closed in deep cultivation. His aura flared with every breath.

  “Perhaps it’s time this… relic of the past was handled properly,” Arin of the Chronomancers added calmly, almost too calmly.

  “Indeed,” Kaius Talahan replied, his voice smooth, almost amused as he leaned back in his seat.

  “Except none of you are willing to send your paragons, are you?”

  He smiled. A dangerous smile.

  “My guess is you want Ayun to clean up his own mess,” Yensu of the Wild Wardens said flatly.

  “Besides, our Void Devourer also seems to have a particular interest in the artificer.”

  At that, a figure took a single step forward and bowed midair.

  The movement was slow, deliberate.

  Ugad of the Keepers.

  Shuyin, Regent of the Keepers, narrowed her eyes.

  “What is the meaning of this, Ugad?” she asked coldly, her voice a blade wrapped in silk.

  Ugad kept his head bowed.

  “Forgive me, Lady Shuyin. But I believe it is my duty to deal with this matter personally,” he said.

  “It began with me. One of my clones—Joran—was the one who trained him. What has happened... what he’s become... all of it began with that spark.”

  He raised his head slowly, expression solemn.

  “I will bring you his head.”

  Shuyin’s eyes flicked to Ayun.

  “And the Mistwalkers? Shouldn’t they also clean up after themselves?”

  Her voice cut through the air like thunder now.

  “After all, Ayun, if you had wiped them out when you said you would, this wouldn’t be happening.”

  Murmurs rippled through the gathered Regents.

  “Agreed,” Arin said.

  “Agreed,” Raijin added with a grunt.

  “Agreed,” Bashu echoed last, his eyes opening for the first time.

  Ayun’s expression twisted with barely contained rage and cold calculation.

  He looked at each of them in turn, his aura roiling beneath his robes. Even here, at the threshold of divinity, they still did not trust each other.

  Each Regent relied on their paragons to guard against betrayal from the others. No one dared move too far ahead.

  And yet… he had no choice.

  “Very well,” Ayun said with a bitter nod.

  “But you all saw the paragons aligning against us. Tiet is a Saint, and at the very brink of ascension. The Matriarch of the Zao clan is no weaker. Even Bashu’s own cult has produced traitors.”

  The Regents stirred, tension rising like a second tide.

  “What are you insinuating?” Kaius asked, his tone curious—but razor-sharp.

  Ayun met his gaze, unflinching.

  “I am saying that if this threat is to be extinguished, we must do it properly. All our paragons. Together. Now.”

  A beat of silence followed.

  Anger flared behind cold eyes. Unspoken fears moved like shadows.

  But he had cornered them.

  To deny Ayun now would imply reluctance. Weakness. Even treachery.

  Kaius’s smile returned—cool and calculating.

  “Very well,” he said.

  “The paragons of the Mistwalkers and Keepers will hunt the Seeker. The rest will aid our forces and crush the traitors aligned against us.”

  He looked around slowly.

  “All in agreement?”

  The room held its breath.

  Then, one by one, the Regents nodded.

  “Good,” Kaius said, voice like a dagger in velvet. “Let it be done.”

  Immediately, paragons began to detach from their Regents.

  Three monstrous figures, the Kings of the Necropolis, peeled off from Daishi’s side, their skeletal armor humming with the songs of the dead.

  Ugad stepped forward, silent and focused, as Shuyin’s eyes burned into him.

  “Ugad,” she called, her voice low and final.

  He turned back toward her one last time.

  “Bring me his head,” she said.

  Ugad bowed once.

  And vanished.