There was a loud click and a plate on Angel’s arm popped open of its own volition. The Fragment popped out. The black Reave and Shield’s Fragments shot out of his bag and Lilian gasped as her chest cracked and the yellow stone flew from it. The four fragments spun together, crackling with energy. Soul slowly took form behind them, materializing from thin air.

“If I didn’t know better, Angel, I would have thought you were trying to help me,” Soul said, shaking his head and laughing. “Your uncontrollable desire to restore Old World Magic has probably done more to aid me in destroying it than anything else in recent history. You were truly a brilliant investment.”

Angel stared at Soul in disbelief, unable to muster even the slightest thought. Soul smirked.

“How quaint. I can see you trying to figure out just what you overlooked this time. After all, I’m only a man. Even if I have multiple bodies, I shouldn’t have been able to get in here since the doors were locked. Heart, of course, has more bodies than I can count. One of which was sealed in this chamber when it was originally made.”

Silver adjusted his grip on his sword and glanced at Angel, but the Seeker was staring mutely at Soul, disbelief marring his features.

“Come now, Angel. Think a little. How could I get in here? The Vault was sealed, after all. I’ll give you a hint - I couldn’t get in until the doors were open. That much, at least, was true.”

“The Star Fragments?” Angel whispered. “But how? Your Fragment should still be off, buried in the catacomb where I trapped you.”

“Oh, it is,” Soul said. “I’ll be retrieving it shortly. What power did my Star Fragment give me, Angel? Think, boy. Let’s see you use your brain for anything other than research for once.”

“It’s literal, isn’t it?” Angel asked bitterly. “Soul. You can hop between the Star Fragments. Heart’s fragment lets him make bodies, and you can inhabit them. You really are dead. You’re nothing more than a specter.”

“And he finally gets it,” Soul said, laughing. “I am the Star Fragments - or what was formed when they were created and my friends were consumed to create them.They are mere extensions of my original form. I am the only one left. The Fragments have no intelligence of their own. Unfortunately, when I was shattered during the Great War, I found myself unable to use my powers in my spirit form. I had to seek out people to use it for me, giving them the Fragments, until the time where I could gather enough magic to build myself a body that could fully access my powers once more. You’ve done wonderfully, my apprentice. I’d won a long time ago, but you were so insistent on aiding me in the last steps of my plan that I couldn’t bring myself to stop you. You even found one of my old experiments and brought her to see if she functioned - I’m proud of that. well done. Just what I would expect from my apprentice.”

“What are you going to do, then?” Silver asked, waving his sword at the huge orb. “You couldn’t possibly need the rest of that magic to rebuild a body.”

“Destroy it, of course,” Soul replied, reaching out for the floating Star Fragments. “I didn’t lie about that. Old World Magic is a plague. I am the only one who can be trusted with its powers.”

“I’ll kill you. Again,” Angel hissed, clenching his arm. The open plate snapped shut and a spell whirred into place.

“How cold, Angel,” Soul said, his voice shifting until it was the Star Fragment’s. “I’ve been with you, every step of the way. Saved your life dozens of times. Aided you in destroying the Buried God. We did this together.”

“What about the memories?” Angel hissed. ‘I saw them. Your friends, the people that died to form the Star Fragments, wanted to end the war. They wanted to save people. You’ve gone against everything they stood for! What happened to Durven?”

A flicker of confusion passed over Soul’s face and he faltered. “Durven? Where did you hear that name?”

Angel took that moment to strike, sending a bolt of relic-empowered lighting screaming for Soul’s head. The spell struck him and evaporated harmlessly, but Soul didn’t even seem to notice.

“Where did you hear that name?” Soul demanded. “Durven is dead!”

“No he isn’t,” Angel snarled. “I saw the Star Fragment’s memories. He’s still there, as are the others. You’ve just been abusing them and they’ve closed themselves off to you.”

“A fragment of what once might have been does not mean intelligence remains,” Soul snarled. Heart grabbed the Star Fragments out of the air and Soul overlayed himself with the robot, fading as its eyes lit with cold intelligence.

“You’re wrong,” Angel said, taking a step forward. “Durven, I need your help. If we fail here, everything you fought for will be gone. This madman won’t stop after he rebuilds himself.”

“Your words fall on dead ears,” Soul said. “There is quite literally nothing you can do. You are too weak, as are your companions. Once I deal with you, I’ll take care of your apprentices. And then, this will finally be over.”

“Hardly,” Angel said, clenching his fists. “You’ve been at war for hundreds of years, Soul. This will only extend it. You’re trying to keep magic from its rightful place in the world. It was a tool of destruction, but also of creation and survival. People flourished before the Great War.”

“And then Old World Magic ruined it all,” Soul replied. Magic started to twist down from the air around him, forming streamers around him.

“Not Old World Magic,” Angel said. “People like you. Durven, I need you. I don’t know you or what you really stood for, but I saw your friends. They gave their lives to protect people.”

Soul’s magic flared and a beam of light erupted from his palms, shooting for Angel’s chest. Purple lightning erupted, crackling alongside the blast and swallowing it just instants before it could reach Angel.

The purple Star Fragment shot away from Soul’s grip and Angel grabbed it out of the air. It sunk into his skin instantly, burrowing through his body in a cold flash and settling within his metal arm.

“Not so dead after all,” Angel drawled, trying to mask his thundering heart.

“I will investigate this once you’ve been dealt with,” Soul snarled. He took the remaining Star Fragments and they sank into him as his body grew more corporeal. “Or have you forgotten that you cannot damage me? You are too weak.”

“That was when you still had a body,” Angel replied. “And the System lies when you’re the one controlling it. I think we’ll take our chances.”

Lilian and Silver lowered into fighting stances. The wound in Lilian’s side from where her Fragment had flown from her chest had started to heal, but the damage to the metal remained open and her rate of improvement was significantly worse without the fragment.

Angel raised his hand and fired a bolt of lightning. Soul batted it away and the three of them charged him. Silver reached the ancient man first, his flowing sword flicking out and biting at Soul’s chest.

Soul’s body twisted unnaturally to avoid the strike and he drove an elbow into Silver’s side. The bandit rolled with the strike and swept Soul’s legs out from under him.

A storm of lightning erupted from Soul’s fingertips and coursed down at Silver. Purple energy rushed from Angel as he arrived beside the two, gulping Soul’s attack. Angel drove his shoulder into his former mentor, knocking both of them sprawling across the floor.

Tiny licks of purple lighting tugged at Soul’s body and he batted them away with a snarl. He drew a rune in the air and shards of ice materialized between them. Lilian leapt between him and Angel, blocking the brunt of the spell with the flat of her blade.

Angel rolled out from behind her while Silver leapt at Soul again. Flashes of light and bursts of magic filled the room as the three fought. Silver and Lilian’s attacks did almost nothing to his body, which morphed and shifted out of the way, netting him only small scratches where there should have been fatal wounds. Angel’s spells did little better. Even without a body to fully inhabit, Soul was just hundreds of times more powerful than they were. What little damage they did manage to inflict upon him quickly healed due to Lilian’s Star Fragment.

“It’s futile,” Soul said, striking Lilian in the chest and sending her flying across the room with a burst of fire magic. She crashed into the wall and slid down, the sword falling from her hands. “Your use is over, my former student.”

Angel dove at Soul, tendrils of purple energy reaching out to envelop him. Soul responded with a shield of crackling blue light, blocking the Star Fragment before it could touch him.

“You only studied artifacts and relics,” Soul hissed. “You don’t know the true might of Old World Magic.”