As I stared at Rock’s lifeless corpse, my brain froze completely.

Ephesis, however, did not.

Already having put the forest commander from his mind, the high priest turned to Jason, and before the scaled rock thrower could so much as lift another pebble, he was dealt with. Another fist of golden light coalesced behind him, and while it sizzled angrily where it met the loose obsidian on the ground, it completed its task: The fist rocketed into Jason’s back, sending him flying towards us.

Evidently not having seen the fist behind him, his eyes went wide as he flew, too surprised to even scream out. When he landed near us, Ephesis was ready for him, summoning up another golden hand, but this time to grab him. The high priest inched closer to the rock thrower, and I wanted to do something to help, but despite no longer being bound by chains, I didn’t know what to do.

Ephesis stared at Jason with a faraway look before nodding to himself. “Hmm. Hardened skin? And you have some sort of momentum transferral skill? Lets you use your body as a battering ram with impunity when you hit into masses of rock? Curious. Does that one apply to dirt as well, or have you only picked up the stone variant? No. Don’t tell me. Let’s see, shall we?”

The golden fist holding Jason shifted its grip before throwing him high into the air. He soared upwards, parallel to the rift, until he was above it. Just as his trajectory reached its crest, another fist materialized above him and to the side.

This one was much less gentle.

The force with which he was hit practically knocked the breath out of me just from watching it. This time, he let out a startled cry as he approached the ground at a speed far greater than terminal velocity. The fist had hit him at an angle, and he came crashing down just outside the ritual diagram. A crater formed at the impact site.

He didn’t get up.

“Just stone then, hmm? A lovely discovery. Thank you for being such a good test subject for me.” Ephesis beamed in the direction of the crater, speaking so casually, I almost expected Jason to walk out of the crater just to say “you’re welcome.”

He, however, did not. The crater was thankfully not deep enough to block sight of the man, and I shot a healing spell to him with the sliver of mana I’d managed to recover. Blissfully, it took, but much like the others, he didn’t move.

The last of my party of five to remain up and… alive, I soon found myself bearing the full attention of the priest.

“Do you see how messy this has gotten because of you? We were so close to having this be a clean and simple affair. But so be it. This time, no inter-”

But, as it so happened, there was an interruption — one I wasn’t fully sure what to make of.

A thread, so vanishingly small, I hadn’t seen it, connected Ephesis to the rift above his head. It resembled a single strand of woven gold and let off the tiniest and faintest of lights.

While I hadn’t seen it up until now, it suddenly became noticeable as it began to grow thicker, letting off a brighter glow. If the others were in a position to see this, I had a suspicion they still wouldn’t be able to. A mana thread, I realized.

Ephesis, however, had no such limitations, and he had caught on before even I did. He tilted his head backwards, bringing the thread into his field of view.

“Ha! It begins! Strange. I didn’t think the lad had enough Prestige in him to kickstart the spell.” He seemed pensive for a second before looking down at the tatters his robes were in where Rock had managed to stab him. “Ah. That would do it. One half-rate commander plus a nice helping of my own blood. Let’s have the rest of you join your friend now so we can wrap this up, yes?”

He resummoned his personal shield and started to sit back down beneath the rift, and I fully expected to soon find myself back in chains. With the exterior barrier down, I considered running, but what was the use? Jason had been on the far end of the cavern, and with a thought, Ephesis had punched him right back. All things considered, I thought we’d done an admirable job given the odds against us. With no mana, no will, and no one left but me, this time I didn’t even need a mental nudge from Ephesis. I was spent, and I was ready for the worst.

It thus came as a shock to both of us when Ephesis’s shield sputtered out and died.

He tilted his head uncomprehendingly before resummoning the shield, only for it to flicker out once more. Brows furrowed, he paused before every muscle in his body seemed to go tense at once.

Fear.

The look on the priest’s face was unmistakable.

Throughout our entire fight, the most emotion he’d shown was a flash of anger when Rock and Jason had struck back at him. Even with chunks of the obsidian shoved deep into his flesh, however, he’d never once shown an ounce of fear.

Yet now, with no conscious enemies around him but me, he looked like the grim reaper had just grabbed his heart and squeezed.

And while no one was actually squeezing his heart, it did almost look like he was being squeezed dry, in a sense. A pulse of light appeared at the spot where the golden mana thread linked to him. It started traveling away from the priest, making its way into the rift. Following it was another and another, funneling something away from him.

“No!” he cried out. “No, no, no, no, no! Not now. Not me. Them! Them! Just wait a brief moment!”

He panned his head from side to side as if searching for a lifeline before his gaze came to rest on Cal. Locking onto her, he started scrambling in her direction.

Go. While the priest with his full magical might could swat me down like a fly, something was wrong with him. Sure, I couldn’t beat him normally. Hell, the five of us put together could barely put a dent in the guy. When gods got involved, however, it was a different story.

I urged myself forward, bolstering my failing spirit. It was, after all, not too hard to figure out what he was going to do to Cal once he reached her. How was I supposed to live with myself if she died and I didn’t even try to stop it?

Of the two of us, he was closer to Cal, but thankfully, his movements were slow and clunky. Either whatever was happening with the thread was affecting more than just his magic, or he’d never bothered putting points in Dexterity. Shaky though I still was, I could stop him.

While I was limited without my mana, I wasn’t completely without my tricks. I couldn’t enhance my weapons or summon up my mana bow, but I still had my spear, at least. I summoned it, its reassuring weight appearing in my hands.

“Damn you! Don’t come any closer!” Ephesis looked back, catching sight of me charging at him, but no fist appeared to punch me back. No chains wrapped around me. Hell, he didn’t even have a weapon. Probably hadn’t needed one in a long time, if ever.

Only a few feet out from where Cal lay, I caught up to him.

Then, without any fanfare, I stabbed him in the guts.

At least, that was the plan. “Hell, what are you made of?” The tip of my spear managed to puncture his skin and draw blood, but that was as far as it went. While he seemed to be skimping on his physical stats, either he had some sort of reinforcement skill, or his Constitution must have been leagues higher than I was used to. No wonder my arrow only dealt him one damage.

In this case, though, stalling was the name of the game. Whatever was happening to him with his mana thread, it was speeding up. I placed myself between him and Cal, barring his path forward, and he snarled.

Not willing to back down, he attempted to barrel through me, but all it earned him was another minor stab wound. As his blood trickled down onto the ritual diagram, if ever so slightly, the mana thread only seemed to widen. As he seemed to realize this, he only grew more frantic.

“Enough!” he hollered. A wave of light escaped him in all directions. As it hit me, it seemed to break and flicker, but it did its job, throwing me back. He followed it up with another spell, calling forth a dozen arrows of light which tracked me as I flew back.

By the time they reached me, half of them had vanished, and the other half had visibly dimmed. Still, they struck true. They sank through my armor, digging deep into my flesh, and it was only dumb luck that the arrows aimed for my heart and neck had been amongst the half that vanished.

It was hardly enough to kill me, but I yelled as they hit me. Despite whatever biologically impossible feats my Constitution and healing were pulling off, I’d already lost far more blood than a person ever should. As the new wounds opened up, I could feel myself start to go foggy once again.

Evidently seeing me as less of an immediate threat, Ephesis shifted his priorities. He paused his mad dash for Cal in an effort to heal himself and keep more of his blood from sinking into the ritual. While the wounds weren’t deep, he was shaking violently as he moved his hand over them. The healing spell seemed to start and stop over and over again, failing to fully fix the wounds.

“Why…” he sobbed. “Aarris. It’s me. It’s me. Please stop. I’m here to save you.”

As if realizing he couldn’t control his magic well enough to fully heal himself, he returned to his goal of reaching Cal.

If I pushed myself, I was confident I could block him before he got to her. It would be close, but I could manage.

As it turned out, however, I didn’t need to.

All at once, every light in the room dimmed, with half of them outright winking out. Replacing the light was a pressure which stopped me in my tracks. I would have tried harder to fight it, but whatever it was, it froze Ephesis too. As much as he might have wanted to move, it was as if some predator had appeared, locking us down with its gaze. Turning us into deer in the headlights.

A moment later, I saw it. There, right where Ephesis’s golden thread connected to the rift, a single tendril of darkness reached out. Somehow, the darkness was escaping.

It coiled around the mana thread, coating it, painting it black as it crept down the thread’s length.

Ephesis did not run. He did not fight. He did not shout or curse the gods.

Instead, he stared at it, almost uncomprehendingly, with tears running down his face. “Why…” he stammered out. “Shouldn’t be possible… So long… So close. I just wanted…”

What he wanted was cut off as the tendril finally reached him.

He screamed.

Even if I managed to survive this all, it was a sound I knew I’d never forget. A grown man, screeching to high heaven, as if all the pain in the world had suddenly found its way to him.

Amazingly, however, the pain seemed to snap him from his inaction. He began to stumble towards, and then after falling, crawl towards Cal. He looked at her with a haunted sort of hope, as if she were the last drop of water in the desert.

I moved. As he saw me approaching, he cried out.

“Don’t! Don’t you dare! Sit down and let them die! Do you want this thing to break free? It’s an abomination! An affront! I am the only one who can save Aarris. You need me to stop it!”

His words gave me pause, but only for a moment.

Maybe he was right. For all that he’d tricked us and used mind magic on us, I’d yet to see anything to suggest he was lying about his goals. He had a god he wished to free, and he wanted to keep the darkness from escaping. He was probably the only person I knew who had a shot at it, too.

So, maybe I was being a fool. Dooming tons of people with my actions. I’d let the philosophy classes mull over my actions and call me right or wrong, though. I’d made my choice.

With my thoughts growing sluggish and my body growing heavy, I caught up to the priest while he was only inches away from Cal’s prone form. Not giving him time to turn the tables, I stabbed my spear down into his neck.

True, this way might kill Cal too. But it was a chance. A chance for all of us. I wouldn’t stand by as I watched Ephesis kill my friends. He’d already taken Rock, and I’d be damned before he took the rest. Better to leave our fate up to chance, at this point.

Even as the spear sank through, Ephesis refused to die, glaring at me with hateful eyes. I stabbed again, and again, until his neck was riddled with holes, and then with one final burst of strength, I pulled back on the shaft, using it like a crowbar.

With a sickening squelch, his head left his body.

This too would haunt me til the day I died, I was certain. Although from how things were shaping up, that day would probably be sooner than I’d prefer.

Congratulations! You hav-

I sank to the ground, dismissing the rapidfire notifications that rolled in. With the small dredges of mana I’d managed to recover, I started enhancing my armor with life mana, too spent to even cast a healing spell.

Hopefully now that the thread is gone, the darkness will go back into the rift. Whatever strange connection Ephesis had to his god should have been severed now, I hoped. It would be impossible to hijack.

Or so I thought, at least.

I looked to where the black-coated thread hung, and far from disappearing, if anything, it was growing larger. Much larger.

Shit, I cursed. I just fed him to his own ritual, didn’t I?

Well, it was too late to take it back.

More and more darkness started to pile out of the rift, filling the room and gathering up upon itself. It blotted out the remaining light, plunging me into complete darkness.

At the final second, a light appeared from somewhere. Exactly what it was, I couldn’t say, as it illuminated the room just in time for me to see a dozen tendrils shooting towards me.

At once, they connected with my head, and then I knew no more.