The world came back all at once.

  My eyes snapped open - and the first thing I felt was pain.

  A hand was still around my throat, cold and iron-tight, holding me above the ground. The air whistled uselessly through my teeth as I kicked.

  Then something shifted.

  A rush - heat in my veins, pressure behind my eyes, a whisper that wasn’t mine. Power. Dark and clean and endless.

  The world dyed in a dark purple.

  My right eye burned.

  Despite my best efforts, I smiled.

  I couldn't stop smiling.

  My hand shot up and gripped the Bishop’s wrist. I could feel his pulse under his glove - steady, almost bored. I squeezed harder.

  His grip faltered.

  I pried his hand off my neck with a single pull and dropped to the ground, landing on one knee, gasping.

  The Bishop made a soft sound of surprise.

  “Oh?”

  I didn’t answer.

  My fingers brushed the pistol half-buried in mud. I grabbed it, stood, and blinked-

  -only to reappear behind him.

  The world warped in that single instant - a smear of shadow, a pull through a place that wasn’t there. Cold slid down my skin like water. When it ended, I stood in silence, gun raised against the back of his head.

  Veins of black crawled up my arm, threading into the pistol’s frame. I didn’t think. I fired.

  The shot cracked like thunder.

  The Bishop vanished at the same instant, reality bending. The bullet hissed through empty air, striking a tree in the distance. Except, instead of embedding itself, it destroyed the tree itself.

  When the Bishop reappeared, it was where my sword had fallen - his hand resting lightly on the hilt. He touched the back of his head, then held his gloved fingers up.

  A smear of red.

  His laughter came quick and bright.

  “You did it,” he said, half in disbelief. “You broke the Twelfth Seal. ”

  He looked almost euphoric, eyes glinting behind the cracked mask.

  “You’ve stepped into the Eleventh, haven’t you? And your second gift… so like mine. Albeit different in its own right.” He grinned wider. “I didn’t earn mine until I broke the Eighth. Terrifying, truly. That such a powerful ability was one of your first.”

  I stared back, still breathing hard. The shadow that had helped me move now clung to me - pooling around my feet, swirling up my arms and legs like puppets drawn to its maker.

  “Better control already,” the Bishop said approvingly. “See? You command it. It obeys you.”

  He flipped my sword lightly and threw it hilt-first toward me. I caught it without thinking.

  “Unlike me and most others,” he continued, “whose relationship with Veil is… cooperative. It whispers, we answer. Even for someone like me, whose at the Sixth Seal. But you-” he smiled faintly, “-It loves you, obeys you. For someone only at the Eleventh Seal, that control is unheard of.”

  He smirked, a knowing look in his eye.

  "Of course, an Angel is no ordinary being. A being of the Veil and loved by the Veil. So it's no surprise, truly."

  I steadied my breath.

  Arthur was at the Eighth seal. Seems he never stood a chance.

  Silence hung for a moment, broken only by the hiss of rain on burning trees.

  I tightened my grip on my sword. My hand shook in anticipation as adrenaline coursed through my veins.

  Again, I couldn't help but smile.

  “Then I guess I should test it out.”

  The Bishop’s grin returned in kind. He rolled his shoulders, blade raised.

  “By all means. Consider this a parental sparring match.”

  The shadows stirred.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  And I moved.

  The fight was different now. I didn’t think - I reacted. One blink, and I was gone, stepping through a fold of darkness. I emerged behind him, slashing, only for his blade to meet mine with a flash of black light.

  Sparks flew. I vanished again - reappearing in the shadow of a fallen tree, thrusting forward. He was already gone.

  His voice drifted from the fog. “Faster, Damian. Your element rewards precision, not brute force.”

  I blinked through the shadow of his own body - came up behind him, slashing diagonally. This time, my blade grazed his shoulder, leaving a line of inky red.

  He laughed. “Good! Using my shadow. Clever boy.”

  The next exchange blurred together - metal, mud, flashes of black and gold. I felt the strain quickly: every teleport left my lungs burning, my head ringing. His movements were sharper, cleaner - his blinks instantaneous, while mine came with a faint delay, a breath where I could still be killed.

  The Bishop struck high. I parried. He vanished. His blade nicked my side before I could even turn.

  “Not bad,” he said. “But predictable.”

  I growled and blinked again - emerging low, sweeping his leg. He countered, spinning gracefully, sword slicing a line across my arm.

  Blood mixed with rain. My muscles screamed. Still, I pressed forward, sword cloaked in shadow, each swing heavier, faster, more desperate.

  Until I missed.

  The Bishop’s next blow tore through the air and sent me staggering back. My boots slid through mud as I dropped to one knee, sword buried in the earth, chest heaving.

  I could barely see him through the haze. He was smiling - that patient, amused smile of a teacher watching his student burn out.

  “Exhilarating, isn’t it?” he said softly. “But you feel it now, don’t you? That emptiness in your chest. That’s the Divine exhaustion of an Eleventh Seal. You’re a Veilwalker like me, Damian, but your well’s still shallow. Even the Azai clans lost child - a mere Awakener - has a deeper well than you do.”

  He stepped closer. I raised my sword out of instinct, but my arms trembled.

  He stopped a few paces away, lowering his own blade. “Easy, now. I’m not here to hurt you anymore.”

  He extended his free hand. “I only want to talk. To show you something.”

  My vision blurred for a moment - exhaustion swallowing adrenaline. The world tilted.

  When I next blinked, his arm was already under mine, supporting me. His strength was gentle, steady. Like a father guiding his son home.

  I tried to speak but couldn’t.

  “Come,” he said quietly. “We’ll walk the rest of the way. There’s something I think you deserve to see.”

  Arthur lay slumped against the tree as we passed.

  His chest still rose and fell, shallow but steady. Rain washed the blood from his shoulder in thin red ribbons.

  The Bishop glanced down at him, voice mild. “I should kill him, you know. So young and already that strong. He’ll only become a problem for the True Prophet’s plans.”

  I didn’t look up. “You would’ve already, if you really wanted to.”

  He chuckled, low and amused. “Fair. Since he seems to mean something to you, I’ll spare his pathetic life.”

  He paused, tilting his head. “Consider it a gesture of goodwill.”

  I gave him a sidelong glance. “That’s a shit attempt at currying favor.”

  “You’re not wrong,” he said cheerfully. “But after what I show you, it won’t matter either way.”

  We kept walking. The rain fell harder now, each drop like a pin against my skin. Thunder rolled somewhere beyond the trees.

  “You don’t seem very concerned with his well-being,” the Bishop added lightly.

  “I am,” I said. “He’s alive. That’s enough. For people like us, scars aren’t shame. They’re lessons. Proof we suffered for something.”

  The Bishop laughed - a strange, almost genuine sound. “Pain as proof. Suffering as virtue. Such a morbid philosophy, born of your Empire.”

  “All the innocent people you controlled and killed would beg to differ,” I said flatly. “You’re madness is what caused the suffering.”

  He smiled faintly beneath the mask. “Perhaps. But I’d rather be free than suffer for nothing. Death is freedom, Damian. To walk this reality only to suffer - now that’s true madness.”

  We walked in silence after that. My vision blurred at the edges, the rain cutting lines through the smoke.

  Normally I liked the rain - it quieted everything - but now the sound only made my head ache.

  The shadows along the road seemed to breathe, and more than once I thought I saw figures in the mist—faces half-formed, watching.

  The Bishop mumbled something under his breath, his voice half-lost to the storm.

  “…watching you.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  He turned his head slightly. “Hm? I said nothing.”

  My brows furrowed, a grim look on my face.

  Great, now I'm schizophrenic.

  Then he laughed softly, as if he found it amusing. “You’re likely paying the price of your ascension. The Eleventh Seal doesn’t come free.”

  “My sanity, then?” I asked.

  “That’s usually part of the bargain,” he said. “The closer we step to the Veil, the thinner the line becomes. Especially for Veilwalkers like us, who draw power from it directly.”

  He glanced at me. “You may never notice the cost - or it may be obvious. But you’ll pay it eventually. We all do.”

  “What did you pay?” I asked.

  The Bishop laughed quietly. “Once, before my Pathway was branded heretical, it was called the Pathway of the Unmade. You and I aren’t so different, Damian. We both had families. Once.”

  He stopped walking, hand moving to his mask. “The difference is - I still remember having one.”

  He lifted the porcelain face away.

  What lay beneath wasn’t flesh.

  It was absence. A void that bent the air around it, edges fraying reality itself. Only that single green eye remained, floating in the dark like a lantern above a pit.

  I froze, unable to look away.

  It wasn't what I expected, but it still unnerved me.

  I just hope the price for me isn't... that. Not yet, anyway.

  “To everyone who ever cared about me,” he said quietly, “I no longer exists. Their memories of me, erased. Eaten. My identity was the price.”

  He slid the mask back on, the porcelain clicking softly against his skin. “The Veil took everything from me, and still I serve. A truly cruel master, no?”

  I exhaled slowly. “Then whatever price I’ll pay must be high, if yours is that… monstrous.”

  “Perhaps.” His tone softened. “The Veil loves its Angels. No doubt it sees me as an abomination, but you? I doubt it would harm you as it does me.”

  “There’s still a price,” I said.

  “There always is.”

  We walked until the trees broke, the rain giving way to open ground.

  Through the haze and ash, I saw it - a cathedral, its spire rising intact amid the ruin.

  Its windows were dark, but faint light bled from within, pale and beckoning.

  The Bishop’s voice was almost reverent. “Yes, my dear boy. That’s where we’re going.”

  He smiled beneath the mask, his gloved hand tightening slightly around my shoulder.

  “It’s time you unfurled your wings a bit."

  The rain only got heavier. As if the heavens themselves were warning me.

  "You're stronger now. Strong enough to see what I see. To understand why I do what I do."