The air froze as the shadows lengthened.

A chill spread in Valdemar’s blood, in his flesh, and in his bones; a cold that made it painful to even breathe. It was the cruel grasp of ice, the frigid touch of death, the final kiss before everlasting darkness.

The festering madness that had seized the Institute recoiled before the encroaching shadow. Mutant eyes froze into icy statues. A sheet of permafrost covered the ground beneath Valdemar’s feet. Colorful fumes turned into white mist.

The Nightwalker emerged from its broken mask in all of its eldritch glory. Valdemar had seen its reflection through his visions in the past, but to see the creature in the flesh was another story entirely. The Nightwalker’s height reached over five meters and then more. A mantle of shadows swirled around a skin of black scales and whitened fur, around crooked horns and cruel arms. The white spiral on the creature’s face vomited the very essence of cold.

The entity made no sound as it manifested. No cry came out of its black vertical maw. No words of magic formed on its cold lips. Valdemar didn’t even hear the faint sound of ice cracking beneath its feet. The Nightwalker had killed the very concept of noise.

It offered only silence.

The Nahemoth’s shrieks more than compensated for its opposite’s muteness. The unborn Qlippoth’s cries rippled across reality. Cracks widened in the fabric of space, the rift oozing colorful smokes and phosphorescent spores.

The Nightwalker raised its many hands at Crétail, its opposite and nemesis. Ice frigid enough to shatter steel shot from its fingers in a deadly volley of spikes. They gored through the Qlippoth’s pale skin and black tentacles, each wound turned blue from the sheer cold.

But no sooner did the Nahemoth take damage than his injuries healed in a gruesome manner. Black tentacles and bloodied eyes grew whenever the ice had struck. Tumors of malignant life repaired the damage before bursting into geysers of acidic blood. Vile smoke rose wherever droplets fell on the Nightwalker.

The Whitemoon’s herald did not roar in anger nor make a sound, but its body language betrayed its cold rage. The shadows swirling around it expanded into a wave of darkness that threatened to swallow Crétail.

The Qlippoth’s blood glowed with the crimson light of the Outer Darkness in response. The red clashed with the black, the universe fracturing where they met. Ice shards and flesh tentacles struck at each other by the dozens, the hundred, the thousand.

Two heralds of opposite Strangers engaged in a dance of creation and destruction before Valdemar’s eyes. Otherworldly light and the grim darkness of space filled the world around the two duelists, hiding the Institute from the summoner’s view. It appeared as if reality itself had been reduced to a primal conflict between opposing forces.

Fire and ice. Life and death. The pale and dark.

The perfect pigments to paint a brand new world.

“Hermann!” Valdemar shouted as his hands bled. The dark blood coursing through his veins dropped on the cold ground but didn’t freeze over. Instead, it spread to form a circle around the shattered remains of the Nightwalker’s mask. Ktulu hopped in its center, ready to do its part. “I’m ready!”

After having been briefly mesmerized by the cosmic spectacle unfolding before his eyes, the troglodyte stood at the side of his canvas. “As… I am!”

The two sorcerers sprung their trap.

Ktulu’s black eyes shone with a sinister orange glow. Magic surged from the familiar’s tiny body as its power echoed with its summoner. Their souls resonated with Hermann’s the same way a music group attuned their instruments for a spectacular symphony.

And sing they did.

The trio’s spell created eldritch notes as it rippled across space and time. The icy ground cracked like a broken mirror. The air screeched and the stones trembled. Red particles surged from Valdemar and Hermann.

The symbols on the Painted World’s canvas glittered with a dozen different colors. Orange and blue, green and red, violet and yellow, green and blue, black and white, so many other shades… they mixed together in a rainbow spiral, an abyss of paint.

The portrait called the Nightwalker and Crétail to it with the inescapable strength of gravity.

The two surprised heralds of the Strangers were pulled backward towards the trap. Icicle shards and black blood swirled together into the endless color spiral, unable to escape its grip.

The ritual’s targets resisted the best they could. Of course they did. They knew what would happen should they be sucked into the painting: the destruction of their body and the rebirth of their spirits into something else. The Nightwalker’s countless arms stabbed the ground with sharp claws to anchor itself to the ground; Crétail shrieked as he tried to fly away.

It did not matter. The Silent King himself had taught Hermann the Painted World’s ritual. It was the secret lore of a Stranger, a spell that once executed could not be countered.

The Nightwalker struggled the most against its fate but succeeded the least. The fragments of its mask that it had so ‘kindly’ given to Valdemar made for the perfect conduit. They gave the summoner’s magic a direct link to the creature’s core essence. Although the entity was beyond human emotions, the expression on its eldritch visage was all too clear to Valdemar.

The disappointment born of betrayal.

Sorry, Valdemar thought, but when choosing between two evils, I would rather deny them both. Nothing personal.

Lord Och had once told his apprentice that whatever he did, someone would pay the price for his decisions. Valdemar hoped that he had chosen well.

The Nightwalker fell first into the canvas’ spiral. Its long arms twisted like coiling snakes carried away by a current of paint. The darkness and the cold became pigments suffused with magical power. The dreaded herald of the Whitemoon shrank as its enormous body was dragged through the canvas, its essence becoming the underpaint of a new world.

Crétail let out a screeching wail as the portrait’s gravity pulled it ever closer to a similar fate; it refused to go gently. The Nahemoth’s crimson aura increased in potency. Eyes of light opened across Valdemar’s vision. Fire came out of them when they blinked.

The veil separating the material plane from the Outer Darkness tore itself apart. Valdemar found himself looking up at the fiery abyss at the center of this hellish dimension, at the vortex of souls feeding Ialdabaoth’s hunger.

I can’t… Valdemar suppressed a scream as his skin peeled off from his flesh. The ritual demanded more of his blood to stabilize itself, to the point that it ruptured the summoner’s veins to feed. It’s… it’s too much.

Baleful red eyes appeared all over his arms; a hungry maw opened in his torso and bit through his robes. Valdemar felt his tongue licking against rows of sharp fangs. His blood turned black, his nails grew into cutting claws. His vision splintered as his two human eyes divided like his body’s cells. His bones bent into angles that didn’t fit Underland’s reality. A ghastly crown of horns grew out of his forehead and something threatened to burst out of his back.

I’m… Ialda… no…

Valdemar focused the best he could as dark whispers tried to worm their way into his mind. As his flesh transformed, so did his soul. The closer Crétail approached him, the less Valdemar stayed himself. His human essence, his memories, his thoughts, everything that made him who he was started fading away.

I am… a mask…

The Father of All’s influence threatened to overwhelm him.

This is… my true appearance, Valdemar realized. The inhuman horror beneath the man’s skin. The Red Prince of the Blood and avatar of Ialdabaoth. The herald of the Strangers, the abomination of the End-Times. A human chrysalis… for a Stranger moth… a human mask for… Ialda… I am Ialda…

The Red Prince felt a hand on its flayed shoulder.

Its many eyes looked in an unexpected direction, to stare at a woman’s comforting smile.

Marianne stood at his side.

Even though she had seen its true figure, she still put her faith in it—him. She had not given up on its—his—person.

A new music echoed across the crimson light.

The comforting lullaby of a music box. A song as sad as it was peaceful. It sounded so familiar, so warm… Crétail’s wail died in his throat, awed by the melody.

I… I am human, Valdemar thought as he struggled to keep his sanity. The warmth of Marianne’s touch and the lullaby together were stronger than the call of the Blood. I am a Stranger. I am both. I am me.

Crétail reacted to the song too. His tentacles relaxed. He no longer screamed. The vile light of the Outer Darkness dimmed around him. The influence of Ialdabaoth was growing weaker in both siblings.

Something in the melody soothed the Nahemoth. Perhaps it reminded him of his mother, of the human part of his bloodline.

The realization filled Valdemar with sorrow.

I wish I could do more, brother, the summoner thought. I wish I could give you the life that was taken from you. I wish I could cleanse your soul from Ialdabaoth’s corruption and stick it into a newborn body. I wish I could give you a normal life, that I could get to know you better. You were innocent in all of this.

Crétail had been born twisted, a tool for a mad cult. For all the destruction his existence had caused, he had never been more than an abandoned child lashing out at the world around him.

The Painted World ritual was the best way Valdemar had found to give his brother another chance and honor his mother’s memory. It was the only option he had found to save Crétail from death, to give him a new chance at life while staying true to his own principles.

Your soul will become reborn as the radiant heart of a new universe, Valdemar promised the sibling he never knew. You will be the wind and the stones, the fertile soil from which flowers will grow. You will be the tree of life rather than the tree of death; you will oversee generations of people. You will become the positive force mother wanted us to be.

Not death, but reincarnation.

Crétail closed his eyes as his anger finally died out. The unborn child of Ialdabaoth fell into the painting to begin a new life; not as a monster imprisoned at the bottom of a well, but into what Ialdabaoth should have been.

A living world that nurtured rather than dominated.

Crétail’s essence turned into a red overpaint over the Nightwalker’s pigments. The two incarnations of opposing forces merged together to form a perfect balance. Malignant life’s growth was checked by the all-consuming destructive power of death.

Shapes and angles appeared on Hermann’s canvas like order rising from the chaos: the branches of a great white tree taking root in a black soil; gentle waves of blue water on an orange shore; a bright yellow sun soaring high in a pale violet sky; green grass and red flowers dancing to the tune of invisible wind. The pigments moved as if they were alive, filling out every spot on the canvas.

The light of the Nahemoth and the darkness of the Nightwalker both dissipated. Their magic had found a new abode in a landscape work of peerless beauty: the door to an artificial universe.

The Painted World was complete.

They…

They had won.

Marianne could hardly believe it herself. The Nahemoth and the Nightwalker were gone. Their flesh and souls had become the mortar of a magical artifact brimming with power; a painting of unearthly beauty.

The crimson light of the Outer Darkness slowly dissipated like smoke. The shape of the Institute’s broken buildings and shattered walls slowly came back into sight.

And Valdemar…

Her companion was no longer the man she had grown so fond of. He had transformed into a humanoid creature of pulsating flesh and eyes, a crowned husk depleted of his blood. He laid at Marianne’s feet on his knees, hands on the ground.

“Valdemar?” Marianne immediately knelt at his side and cast a healing spell on him. She felt her magical power flowing into him like a droplet in an underground river. “Valdemar, are you alright?”

“I’m… fine…” His breath was loud and heavy, but the voice belonged to Valdemar’s. The outside had changed, but he remained human within. “I’m fine…”

Thank the Light, she thought. Valdemar’s familiar was in a sorry state too, but unharmed. Ktulu held its tiny head as if suffering from a headache. They are well and sound… I’m so glad.

“You have wasted too much blood, my apprentice.” The shape of Lord Och appeared next to Hermann and the Painted World when the crimson light faded out. “You will need a few minutes to recover and pull your human guise back on.”

Marianne glared with disapproval at the Dark Lord. Somehow his reappearance didn’t surprise her. “His human face is no guise, Lord Och, but his true self.”

“Of course, of course,” the lich replied without meaning it. “Much like the old bones beneath the human illusion are an elaborate mummery.”

To Marianne’s surprise, the Dark Lord carried a familiar music box. “That belongs to Valdemar,” Marianne noted. Was that the source of the lullaby?

“Have you forgotten your report from when you visited the dream Vernburg, Young Marianne? ‘Crétail is a sweet child. He likes the music box very much.’”

Marianne remembered these words all too well. “That was what his nurse said.”

“It made my mother cry…” Valdemar rasped. “It… it probably reminded her of Crétail…”

Lord Och chuckled as he delicately set the music box aside. “I have lived long enough to know music can lull even the most unruly child to sleep. I had the intuition it would prove useful.”

Valdemar oriented his head in his teacher’s direction. “Was that… Why did you miss the battle? To pick the box… up?”

“My my, what’s with the accusing tone, my apprentice? Did you expect foul play from me?”

Valdemar smiled. In his current state, his lips pursed to reveal a ghastly grin of sharp fangs. Marianne found the sight disturbing, but it was worth a thousand words.

The fighting didn’t end with the Painted World’s creation, however. Aleksander Verney’s swarm form was collapsing as the creatures making up its body scattered and Qlippoths fought the six other Dark Lords. The maddening, reality-altering images of the Nahemoth’s demiplane might have slowly receded from the Institute’s grounds, but Ialdabaoth’s eyes still covered the Domain’s stone ceiling.

“The Qlippoths are still here,” Marianne observed. “Has something gone wrong?”

Lord Och dismissed her concerns. “The remaining Qlippoths will occupy my colleagues for a short time, but without the Nahemoth to bind them together, the Outer Darkness and our reality will diverge. No new intruders will appear to bother us. They have lost.”

Marianne prayed he was right.

In stark contrast with everyone else, Hermann hadn’t paid any attention to the world beyond the Institute. The troglodyte only had eyes for the Painted World. His hand trailed against its surface, his claws sending ripples through the pigments.

Marianne wasn’t certain if troglodytes could cry, but Hermann looked like he was about to.

“It’s…” Hermann shook his head with the trepidation of a dreamer who had finally fulfilled his lifelong goal. “It’s beautiful… so beautiful…”

“Indeed.” Lord Och observed the Painted World with a hint of genuine respect. “You have created a world, children. This is a feat worthy of the gods.”

“More than… than a world,” Valdemar rasped. “An afterlife.”

“Pictomancy portraits… can capture souls, Lord Och,” Hermann explained. “This Painted World will become my people’s home… but we could create another using similar principles. A landscape of Heaven… a resting abode for the dead.”

“I doubt we shall have another Nahemoth and Nightwalker to sacrifice,” Lord Och replied with skepticism. “It was a once in an eon opportunity.”

“Perhaps,” Hermann conceded, but he remained optimistic. “But… we can learn from this world. The concept works… we could create another with… with souls. With time, work, and research… we can achieve anything.”

Lord Och listened to Hermann’s words with a look Marianne struggled to identify. The lich’s skull lacked any facial features, but his posture betrayed his inner thoughts. Confusion? Hesitation?

Regret, Marianne realized.

The feeling lasted no more than a moment. The Dark Lord’s usual coldness had taken over once again.

For some reason, Marianne sensed a chill running down her spine. A gut feeling of incoming dread took her over as she observed the Dark Lord. The weakened Ktulu hissed at the lich, its tentacles wriggling in anger.

Fear, Marianne realized. Like a dog barking at danger.

“You have served me well, Hermann.” Lord Och almost sounded proud. “You are a credit to the troglodytes. It’s truly a shame that a genius like you died so early.”

The troglodyte frowned. “What… do you mean, Lord—”

Marianne’s eyes widened in horror and she immediately jumped into action. “Hermann, get down—”

The Dark Lord raised a finger and struck Hermann dead.

A fiery ray erupted from the lich’s index finger and burnt a hole in the troglodyte’s chest. The heart, the lungs, and everything inside the ribcage was instantly vaporized. Hermann’s eyes widened in shock and incomprehension as he fell to his back. He tried to blurt out a word, but no air came out of his mouth. Lord Och watched the scene unfold with a cold, remorseless gaze.

Marianne’s rapier struck the lich before Hermann’s corpse hit the ground. “Murderer!”

Her blade cut through his left eye socket and came out of the back of his skull.

“What…” The weakened Valdemar tried to rise to his feet, only to stumble on his chest. His voice died in his throat as he saw the smoke coming out of Hermann’s corpse. “W-Why?”

Because I guessed right, Marianne thought. “Because he wanted the Painted World from the start!”

“I’m afraid you’re only half-right, my dear child.” Even though Marianne’s soulbound weapon was stuck in Lord Och’s skull, it had done nothing to inconvenience him. If anything, he sounded vaguely amused by her defiance. “It is not the painting that interests me, but what it contains.”

The Nahemoth. Maybe the Nightwalker too.

He was after the Nahemoth all along. Somehow the Dark Lord intended to use the Painted World to reach his Light. Marianne knew it in her gut.

Lord Och raised a finger at her, but Marianne didn’t let him blast her like Hermann. She thrust her rapier a hundred times in short succession, her weapon so fast that a normal human’s eyes wouldn’t have been able to follow it.

Marianne would have thought twice at striking a Dark Lord less than a year ago. Not today. Not after what she had seen.

Her blade cut through Lord Och’s fingers, his hands, his arms. She shattered his skull and ribcage to pieces. When she was done, a pile of broken bones fell to the ground before her feet.

“Run…” Valdemar rasped as he struggled to stand up. “You can—”

“Not without you!” Marianne replied as she took a step back. She didn’t know how long it would take for a lich like Lord Och to manifest a new body. Each second counted. “We need to go to Lord Phaleg. He will—”

“My good-for-nothing former apprentice, truly? You would shame me so?”

The lich’s bones floated back into place and dashed all of Marianne’s hopes.

It took the Dark Lord no longer than the blink of an eye to stand before her once more. Her rapier’s cuts vanished as the bones merged back into a pristine state.

“Your efforts are wasted, Young Marianne,” Lord Och declared, a sinister blue light shining in his skull’s eye sockets. A terrible pressure fell on Marianne’s shoulders, and she suddenly realized how vast the power gap between them truly was. “You are talented, I will give you that much. With a few more decades under your belt, you might have been a threat. But alas…”

He raised his hand, and Marianne felt the soulstone necklace around her neck burning against her skin. She tried to strike, to charge, to fight, but her body refused to move. Her chest felt cold, so very cold, and she heard Valdemar scream her name.

“You died before your time.”

The Dark Lord snapped his fingers.