A fortress on its last legs, the walls aflame and crawling with invaders.

  A forest aflame, all but the final core of ancient oaks burned down to cinder-covered stubs.

  A horde of rats chewing a corpse down to the bone and gristle.

  All these and visions and more I saw in the kaleidoscope of the Beyond, and in every one of them, I saw my death coming for me. The enemy was advancing, and I was fighting losing battles on all fronts.

  Arrows fell from the sky, cutting down the invaders as they climbed towards the fortress’ final inner walls.

  Sheets of rain howled over the forest, beating down the thousand tongues of flame that crawled among the leaves and branches.

  Birds ripped rats from the corpse, hauling their shrieking bodies towards the air.

  Above all this, above a dozen battlefields, I saw the crowned sun of Arak rising. The heat was a pressure bearing down against my soul. Worse, I could see a dark shadow twisting within, like an embryo taking form in the yolk of that red-orange flame. Whispers came from afar. Shudder-inducing fingers of thought pressed into my mind as I struggled to hold the battlefields; the hunger of the Black Wolf built in my mind until I could hardly think over the howling of its voice.

  Then-

  The battlefields collapsed into one. I stood on the ramparts of the broken temple-fortress, Ramses alongside me. A thing crawled over the last wall, a long blood-soaked claw grasping the lip and hauling up a hideous monster.

  Its hunched back was a mound of skulls, joined together by wax from the dripping candles atop each brow. Its own head was equine, made of solid onyx, with eight red eyes.

  I lifted my sword and took my best strike. The blade shattered with a crystal ring as the beast swatted it aside-backhand, and Ramses surged past, meeting the beast dead on and sending it hurtling back over the wall. I simply stared at the broken hilt in my hand, the blade’s breaking still ringing in my ears as it dissolved into threads of golden Mana.

  Another creature tried to haul itself up, Ramses driving his foreleg onto its skull with a crack. The world’s began to split again, the moment of focus lost, and the whispers of the Black Wolf rose-

  Until something else broke through from the sky. Moonlight hung over the battlefield, and rain that sparkled with the colors of rainbow. A familiar Mana spread through the air as the goddess’ divine power washed down.

  I had nothing left to do but laugh. Somehow- I couldn’t even begin to guess- my territory had spread over the tunnels where my soul had been lost in the Pale Beyond. As the physical threads of my Mana spread through the Beyond, so did the divine protection.

  And I found the threads that extended from my core, leading back to my heart.

  I was free.

  With a shout of triumph and Ramses at my side, I pulled myself free of the Beyond, traveling along the thread to my true form. The temple and all the layered realities beneath shattered like glass.

  ---

  Consciousness returned like a light flicking on. I saw the world, not just the spiritual infinity of the Pale Beyond. The sand and wind, the green-blue eye of the oasis, the crawling multiplicity of life.

  My shores were covered in crawling globs of slime. They were common things, actually, formed whenever enough untamed Mana coagulated and took material form. My absence had allowed them to spawn out of overflowing magic.

  Nevermind. That was housekeeping. My sight stretched over the desert as I rearranged fractured threads of ethereal Mana, feeling a certain sickening dizziness as I was forced to reckon with the damage done. Being forced into the panther’s body and then the beyond had ripped apart the hidden network of Mana veins and rivers that connected my territory, leaving me blind to huge stretches.

  But I found what I needed quickly enough.

  A huge section of the desert had fallen away. A massive circular slab of stone concealed beneath a sand dune had opened, dropping enormous quantities of dust onto what lay below; a cavernous city overrun with the dead and with Arak’s minions. I’d wondered why the gods had chosen this desert, devoid of life. Now I understood.

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  My territory was still slowly filling the cavern, but already, the goddess’ divine protection was laying low the strongest among them. The creatures above Silver found themselves bound by divine restriction, their strength taken, their souls starting to bend under immense pressure. Without support the Bronze wolves and other small minions would soon become easy prey.

  Everything that could flee was trying desperately to escape out into the tunnels, while those caught in the city’s core were breaking down and dying.

  At the core of the chaos I found a formation of stone golems shaped like divine women fighting to hold the steps of a vast temple; they waged war against an enormous construct of bone, a serpent-bodied, four-armed warrior with a demonic skull. As the barrier crushed against the Silver-tier it was steadily torn apart, denied the chance to escape as they tore it apart blow by blow.

  They didn’t need my help. I moved past them, searching still.

  In the temple’s heart I found them. A stone woman I didn’t know, Kahlin, and being tended to them as he died, my lemur. The lost child who’d walked away after his brothers fell. He was wounded horribly, much of his fur lost to clumsily healed burns, his left hand gone, his bladed talon-hand shattered. His soul flickered, wrapped in a moonlit energy.

  The wounds went deep, but I could save him. In the time he’d been gone his battles and connection to the Locus had fueled the Mana-flame around his soul brightly.

  Bright enough to begin an Ascension. For the first time since receiving the ability, one of my creatures would evolve to a new state. Nevermind closing his wounds - I could give him a new shape, an entire new body.

  I conjured a mist of healing waters around him, stabilizing his body for what was to come.

  I only hesitated for a moment, before reaching for the Cursed Eye, finding the idea of a haunting apparition with powerful mental attacks more appealing than pure brute strength or even covert and shadowy magic.

  But as I reached out to make the choice and collapse his Mana-flame into a new shape, the lemur’s soul flared in pure, undiluted anger. The sheer emotion rising in his mind rejected my influence, and he let out a soft, almost plaintive cry. I understood. His mind held no secrets.

  He didn’t want to fight.

  He didn’t want to be a thing that fought anymore, didn’t want to serve or suffer. I could understand his mind, as he lifted a shivering hand and fell back, exhausted.

  Too much. I’d asked too much of him, when I made him a warrior. I took a simple creature that foraged and hid and turned it into a living blade. That blade lay broken, blunted, chipped, and I had no right to ask for anything more. I would turn him back into what he’d been. It was only right. I could feel the yearning in him for his family, for a simple life, and I prepared to dismiss the Ascension entirely-

  Until a shimmer of moonlight ran through my mind.

  Without hesitation I accepted the gift, and watched.

  Pale mists of star-blue light gathered around his body, and the hulking warrior-form I’d granted melted away, flaking into shards of discarded energy. What was left within was a small, curled form of leathery black skin and snow white fur, with wide, intelligent eyes that blinked open. It stared at its own paws for a moment, then shot up the stone woman’s arms and onto her shoulders.

  I felt the warm spark of joy in its heart.

  And beyond, a city was being won, the last of Arak’s minions fleeing as I took control over every broken house, every fallen temple. I'd spent the day almost dying, always running, outnumbered at every turn.

  The sight of them in those same dire straights felt glorious.