Ethan was racing towards the newly spawned golems before they managed to draw their bows.

  He sliced four of them apart at once with a quick activation of Twilight Edge, sending threads of darkness coursing through their stone bodies and fracturing them inside out.

  His next opponents came charging from his left – four of them running with raised fists. They’d discarded their bows entirely, their hands forming into jagged boulders that could crush any mortal being on Argwyll.

  Ethan summoned up a Wing Buffet to throw them right back into the foggy expanse before the mountains. Then, he looked up to see twelve more firing arrow after arrow into the ground, not worrying about their stone-faced comrades who were charging at Ethan from all sides.

  In response, Ethan blinked once, tossed one blade into the air, and used Blade Magnetism to send it boomeranging through the foggy air towards the archers above. While his flaming blade sliced them apart, on the ground he gripped his corrupted violet longsword and cleaved through six golems who had made a mad dash for his feet, desperate to weigh him down just as he’d impaled them.

  As they fell, crumbling, into the mass of grey death below, Ethan watched yet more rise from the graves of the fallen. And each time he beheld the same agonizing message:

  Spirit Cores Gained: 0

  Anger wouldn’t serve him out here. He had a certain perception to keep up, now. That was why he’d decided to forge on instead of playing politics back in Arcona, after all. He wasn’t made for that. It wasn’t him.

  The thought struck him as the golem army advanced, their numbers almost fully replenished from those he’d slain topside.

  No – he was meant for other things. His talents lay elsewhere.

  As the golem army advanced, he started to see faces in their stonecut features – the faces of the Hybrid army, glowing with corrupted energy, each one of them racing towards him. Their Lord. Their savior.

  The Archon who would burn the entire world for them…

  As the horde converged on him, lumbering down the still-standing mountains from above and racing towards him from below, he raised his hand and summoned his second blade right back to him.

  He watched the army lumber towards him. And he waited.

  Come on, he urged them, feeling the power of all his Hosts welling up inside his being. Come on, then.

  As the first mass of golems touched him, his blades struck out of their own accord. He cut through five from behind, five from the front, and froze an entire column with a Winterbreath belch to his left. Those on the right managed to hurl their boulder fists right into the nape of his neck but unfortunately found that their moss-covered stone fists fractured as they made contact with his flesh – or at least, what had once been flesh.

  Adamantine Skin: Activated.

  Ethan’s four violet eyes turned to glower at the stone soldiers.

  Then, he let fly a Roar that shattered the whole column of warriors into pebbles.

  The rest of the horde wasn’t letting up. He could feel them lumbering towards him, intent on crushing him, weighing him down, checking his progress.

  And this time he didn’t even turn round to face them. Instead, his grips tightened on the hilts of his blades, and he let the power raging within him flow freely.

  CRASH.

  The golems threw themselves on him, finally managing to grab his limbs and throw him to the ground, piling on top of him in a great pyramid of grey boulder and moss. Each one of them then activated their own Stone Burden ability – the Skill that would keep the Archon their prisoner in this forsaken place once and for all.

  But within the grey mound that was the Archon’s prison chamber, Ethan’s eyes were once again aglow.

  And each golem surrounding him felt a distinct sense of energy coursing through the world around them.

  [Implosion] (Grade S)

  In a last-ditch effort to eradicate your foe, you imbue up to 5 objects nearby with a Smart-Bomb enchantment.

  Each bomb, when triggered, implodes for 1000 Spirit DMG in a 50ft radius.

  *Note: This Skill uses up all of the User’s MP

  Their Appraisal of Ethan’s breakout Skill had come too late – before any of them could move a muscle, five golems on the outside of the makeshift pyramid exploded, sending a chain reaction through the crowds that disintegrated every single golem that had risen and re-risen and burned the mossy ground they had been spawned from. Ethan felt the searing heat of the spirit bomb assault himself from within the mound, but barely felt a thing as the flames of his own attack dissolved his enemies and barely even nicked him.

  He watched the faceless forms of the golems disappear into the foggy air, and after only a minute of constant, fiery explosions, he stood up without a single bead of sweat on his forehead.

  Foes Slain: Sentinel Golem (x345)

  Spirit Cores Gained: 0

  He swept both his blades through the air, eyes still charging with another Azure Arc attack.

  “Anyone else!?” he shouted into the void. “Or are you ready to come out of hiding?”

  No response. Nothing but crumbling rocks and shattered golem bodies melting in the dawn’s light answered him.

  He lowered his blades and breathed in the stale, crisp air of desolation. Looking around him, he saw only fire – fire that was spreading up the mountains that were still standing…

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  Then, like a set of cascading dominos, the great mounds surrounding him began to fall.

  Eth-!

  Blink (Grade S) Activated.

  He teleported right back into the sky and watched the great towers fall upon each other – taking the ancient ruins they bore on their backs with them. As they fell, he was surprised to find that he felt nothing at all. After the destruction that had already been brought to the world, a little more meant less than nothing.

  Especially if it was all going to be wiped out, soon.

  So…we gonna talk about what just happened or..?

  Sys let the question hang. And Ethan had no answer for it.

  Instead, he focused his eyes on the fallen mountain range, seeing that the collapse had revealed something down there – something that had been just underneath the rubble of golem dead. Something that harbored life within.

  In the next instant he Blinked again, appearing at the base of one fallen mountain and clearing the smoke with a powerful Wing Buffet. He saw what seemed to be an oval door carved into the earth – something bearing the form of a scaled serpent etched into its face.

  “This is it,” Ethan said. “This is where he’s hiding.”

  …great.

  Ethan bent low and inspected the object, running his hands along the odd fresco. It was strange – though clearly cut into the earth the texture of the material felt oddly warm to the touch.

  Appraisal: Failed.

  …what?

  He tried again – just to be sure he’d read that right.

  Appraisal: Failed.

  That made no sense. His Appraisal was S-Rank. And yet it was still possible to fail?

  Sys?

  Sys seemed by all accounts to be just as confused as Ethan was.

  My best guess? Appraisal is bound to this world – this dimension. It can only evaluate material that came from Argwyll.

  Ethan blinked.

  You’re telling me that whatever this door is made of came from – what? Another planet?

  It’s a possibility, Sys admitted – though his hesitation wasn’t alleviating Ethan’s own sense of building doubt. Or it’s possible that this Architect is capable of crafting something out-of-this-world.

  A Master craftsman, Ethan mused. You know, I was never a big fan of crafting systems in RPGs back on earth. Too much of a grind. Too tedious. The irony’s not lost on me.

  Well, in any case, that settles it, Sys sighed. We all had a good time. It was a fun trip, Ethan, but looks like this old hermit won’t be coming out any time soon. So, guess we’d better just mosey on over to Mist – hey!

  Once again, Ethan had taken to the skies, and was beginning to angle both his blades so that their tips were in-line with the door.

  Oh, please tell me you’re not thinking –

  If you don’t have a key, Ethan thought as he summoned up his offensive Skills. Make your own.

  His pale muscles burned with hidden energy, veins rippling across their surface as they transported blood and fire both to his fingertips.

  Then, he lifted both blades into the air and sent a single deadly laser towards the Architect’s front door:

  [Storm of Revok]

  [Cry of Baphomet]

  [Twilight Edge]

  [Ice Barrage]

  [Thorn Hail]

  [Angel Arm]

  [Azure Arc]

  The heat of the blast ruptured a few of his own feathers. His hands disappeared as a searing conflux of screaming blue erupted from his blades and flew towards its target, turning the ground to glass. The wail of the attack cut through whatever complaint Sys had tried to make before he began. He let the power fly, savoring the sheer magnitude of energy flowing through him and releasing down there. It felt like a perfect way to blow off all the steam he’d had building up all these long months of planning – all the pressure that had given him more sleepless nights now than when he’d simply been a little hat on a rat’s filthy body.

  And yet, what he saw when the storm of his assault subsided brought all the tension right back to the core of his being.

  He watched the light of his own supernova fade away from his hands. And all around he saw devastated earth.

  But the Architect’s door was still perfectly intact.

  He blinked through his confusion. His mind needed a moment to catch up with what he’d just seen.

  …well, that just about confirms it. There’s no way this ‘Architect’ is originally from Argwyll. Which means it ain’t really worth bothering him any mo-

  [Dive]

  Ethan activated every single offensive skill he had this time, building them all up inside his chest before channeling them into a Dive attack that had managed to lay Artorious low during their duel. He flew towards the door like a speeding comet – not just a falling star, but a tumbling constellation.

  And when he slammed into the door he felt – resistance.

  Impossible.

  The word raged round his mind. But he couldn’t argue with reality.

  Once again, when he stood up and looked on the door, there wasn’t even a single crack on its surface.

  He felt his anger begin to flare – felt his hands grip the hilt of his swords with such strength that he felt them begin to bleed. He tried again – flying into the air and channeling Tangeon’s [Enlarge] ability – making himself just as huge as that giant had back in the crumbling Cathedral of Camoran.

  And with such weight behind him, he launched into another Dive – taking advance of the S-Ranked weight addition to at least quadruple his damage output.

  He crashed into the door and felt his own skin blister. The object didn’t even budge.

  He looked down at the thing, confusion mingled with fury welling up inside.

  “No,” he said aloud. “No, no – no!”

  He activated [Skitter] and began to deliver a series of lightning-quick slashes at the surface of the door, drawing his flaming Onixian blades across every inch of the material – both blades delivering enough attack power to lay entire cities to waste never mind a single solitary oval set into the decimated earth.

  And yet, even after all his exertion, there it stood. Completely unblemished.

  Having finally had enough, Ethan threw down his swords.

  …dude.

  “Don’t ‘dude’ me, Sys,” he warned. “This – doesn’t make any sense.”

  Neither did you when I first met ya, Sys quipped. But that’s the way of things not native to this world – they keep on surprising you.

  “That fact doesn’t help me,” Ethan said, wiping his uncharacteristically sweaty brow. “If this Architect won’t come out to parlay, and I can’t force my way in, how the hell am I supposed to get inside?”

  …stop caring about it?

  Ethan threw his head to the foggy sky. “You don’t get it,” he said. “You still don’t know why I’m here, do you?”

  I know that you’re always making plans, and plans within plans, and that the world feels unfair when they don’t go right. But the truth is – maybe you're focused on the wrong goal.

  Ethan sat himself down on a piece of molten rock, eyes fixed on the door that wouldn’t budge. The impossible obstacle.

  “There’s always a way,” he said. “There has to be. It always seems impossible at first, but I always find a way.”

  Yeah, Sys agreed. But it’s always the hardest damn way you could go.

  Ethan sat with folded hands, observing the unmoving thing that sat there mockingly while the world burned around it. There was little else he could do.

  Let me ask you something, Sys said. If the road you follow brings you only pain, then of what use is the road?

  “It’s the road I’ve chosen,” Ethan said – though the words rang hollow in his ears.

  Is it? Or is it just the path that seems right? Is it what you want, or is it what you want the world to believe you want? You can tell yourself what you like, but you got a kick out of fucking up those golems. Why should you punish yourself for being who you are?

  “I told you before that I’m not discussing this,” Ethan said, rising and picking up his swords again. He didn’t have anything else to say, and he wasn’t interested in a philosophical diatribe right now. Now, what he needed was a way forward. What he needed was to get this Architect to open his damn door and at least listen to what he had to say.

  But when he raised his blades again, ready to take another crack at this – that was when he heard a voice in his head that definitely didn’t belong to Sys.

  He knew it as soon as it began speaking to him. Its timbre was much more ancient, much more potent, and far, far more scathing than anything Sys could conjure up:

  You really enjoy killing, don’t you?