I convulsed on the ground wrapped in a frigid cold, heart pounding faster and faster.

  Why doesn't it hurt?

  I almost activated Abyssal Veil, stopping myself only because the icy sensation bloomed throughout me and something within my soul gobbled it up like it was a batch of fresh cinnamon rolls. I still couldn't move, but every nerve vibrated with an intense energy.

  Am I being massaged to death?

  Jag'thar hovered a foot off the ground, holding his volcanic staff. He tilted the staff in his hands, examined it closely, then pointed it in my direction once more.

  "Void Ray of Malevolent Destruction and Infinite Darkness," Jag'thar rehearsed the spell lazily.

  Another triangular beam shot out of the staff's tip and nailed me in the forehead. The world's worst brain freeze hit me like I had slammed two liters of a slushy. Then the cold vanished.

  Swallowed whole.

  A buzzing pins and needles sensation ran through my veins like a current of static electricity. It was similar to what I felt when I manipulated the darkness with Shadow Weaves, except cranked up to an intolerable caliber.

  Jag'thar scratched the bottom of his rotten chin, accidentally severing a dehydrated flap of flesh like it was made from papier-maché. He pointed his staff toward Westcott's party, who had been inching their way down the alley. A hopeless retreat.

  Zap.

  The same black beam lanced through the air in an instant, finding Eliko's torso. The healer erupted. Flesh, bone, and tattered clothing exploded outward in a resounding blast, knocking Westcott and Hendrix off their feet.

  Smoke rippled off the tip of Jag'thar's obsidian staff, which he turned back toward me. He hovered closer, aimed the gem tip point blank and fired off three more blasts.

  I could feel my organs bloat and bones shift as the immense amount of energy surged through me. The channels that carried the overwhelming current swelled, then expanded.

  +1 Shadow Weave Mastery

  +1 Dreadshade Mastery

  +1 Abyssal Veil Mastery

  +1 Void Seer Mastery

  The bold text fell through Jag'thar's oblivious skull as he hovered closer.

  A burst of out-of-tune chords rang out from nowhere. It was like a ghost had slammed its fists across the keys of a phantom piano. I coughed hard and darkness curled out of my mouth.

  "I won't fall for your trick!" Jag'thar roared and bashed me in the side of the head with the bottom of his staff. "Impossible!"

  Ouch, fuck.

  My ears rang, and warm blood trickled down my forehead. The edge of my vision blurred. I tried moving and my body seized up.

  "Wait for my signal. It may be our only chance," Westcott whispered from the far end of the alley.

  Despite the distance between us, his voice arrived crisp, as if he were speaking right beside me.

  "You can't fool me." Jag'thar swung his staff like a golf club, cracking me hard under the chin. "The Corrupted Choir was erased from existence the moment It was vanquished."

  I tiptoed along the edge between conscious and unconscious until he spoke. His words unleashed a second wind. Loose teeth and blood filled my mouth as the side of my head lay on the stone. Underneath the pain, beneath flesh and bone, an incredible power stirred.

  The lich's shapeless azure orbs gazed into my soul. "How does a human possess the fragments of that which no longer exist? Is it a reflective illusion you’re pulling from my subconscious?"

  "Chaos," I choked out as plumes of darkness rose out of every pore and orifice.

  "How delightful and multicultural of you to speak my native language. Except, humans cannot speak the banished tongue. Just as it's impossible for a human to withstand void damage."

  "The pale one..." I said. "He was here?"

  Jag'thar burst into laughter, teeth clattering together. Meanwhile, Westcott and Hendrix sat in a puddle of Eliko, watching the madness unfold.

  "Is Cyprus talking to him?" Westcott whispered. "I can't hear a thing."

  Hendrix nodded. "I think he told the lich a joke... Sir, shouldn't we retreat and rally Valor and Glory?"

  "Don't move a muscle."

  Considering how Nassir was on the opposite end of the alley, he didn't get the memo. He took two steps back and Jag'thar took a blind shot, which instantly found its target. He exploded in a spectacular fashion. Bits of assassin rained across the cobblestone.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Ah, you're associated with that pest from beyond the Pale Horizon. Now it makes sense," Jag'thar said as he pressed the smoldering tip of his obsidian staff against my chest. "Tell me, human, what's that demanding little bastard's endgame?”

  "I was going to ask you the same thing."

  Jag'thar whacked me across the side of the ahead again with his obsidian staff.

  "Had you not killed the Abyssal Demon on the first floor, it alone would've wiped out your fellow humans before they reached the second floor. Your measly death here could never make up for what you've cost me. Perhaps I'll keep you around as a toy. I will need some form of entertainment now that Mari's gone. But first, you'll watch me kill your friends. One by one."

  "No... Anything but that," I said, pouting my bloodied lips.

  "Sarcasm? Why are you not scared? Your illusion has been exposed and your body has been crippled. I still don't know why that nagging shit sent you or why you've imitated the choir."

  "The choir?" I said, barely managing to even get two words out as the buzzing in my body escalated.

  "For a creature whose lifespan is but a single flicker of a candle, you'd be better served planning how you will keep me entertained than worry about the history of millennia past. But since you are so interesting, I'll let you in on the joke the pale one has made you a part of."

  The lich stabbed the bottom of his staff through my left leg like it was a cup holder. I flinched out of instinct, but immediately noticed the complete lack of pain.

  Jag'thar floated down, cracked his neck with a sigh of relief. He sat down across from me and crossed his armored legs. "Ages and ages ago, when Lich Lords prospered throughout the Void, a story seemingly emerged out of the darkness itself. A story about a formless interloper."

  A shock jolted my heart, and my breath froze in my lungs.

  "An interloper who could not be seen, nor heard, but was always listening and always hungry. Whose strength grew when its story was told or its existence was referenced."

  Why would they keep telling the story?

  "Human logic might suggest they stop telling it. But the Void is vast, boring, and its inhabitants are as insufferable as they are skeptical. A story in the Void is like... What's a treat humans like? Wait, I know–water. A story in the Void to a lich is like water to a human."

  Terrible metaphor.

  "Lich Lords love a good, scary tale. So the story was told and retold until prominent Lich Lords began disappearing along with high ranking demonkin, and even some of the Fallen themselves. Mari told me it even consumed entire areas of the Void–an end to the endless."

  As Jag'thar spoke, my skin clammed up. Sweat and blood stung my eyes and every mention of "It" sent my heart rate soaring.

  "Paranoia and panic swept the Void. Many suspected it was one of the Fallen's creations gone haywire. Others thought it was one of Galdir's practical jokes." Jag'thar looked both ways over his shoulder. "Many who vanished spoke of a dreadful orchestral noise leading up to their disappearance. Mari said the Corrupted Choir is what they heard before their existence was consumed."

  Jag'thar grabbed his staff as he stood up, leaving a gaping hole in my leg.

  "There are no laws in the Void, only a mutual understanding that those events are to never to be spoken of. I suppose Mari used it as a way to keep me on my toes... An exaggerated legend, eons and generations removed."

  The twin orbs of azure flames flickered within his hollow sockets, like a strong breeze had passed through. But the air was stilted and aside from my relentless heartbeat, it was dead quiet.

  "Pale One, if you are listening, don't send any more of your lackeys to try to scare me into doing what you asked me to do when I'm already in the middle of doing it. And your illusion was neat, but the Corrupted Choir was known for its ear piercing strings and brass, too. Not just a shitty spectral piano."

  I convulsed on the ground. Despite my ravaged body, I felt no pain. An eerie calm took hold, and I was finally at peace.

  A sour violin note snapped through the air, followed by warped, shrieking trumpets echoing off the dungeon's walls. I closed my eyes and saw myself in the third person, violently seizing with black foam spurting out of my mouth.

  Damn. I really am dead this time...

  Nail-on-a-chalkboard sounding instruments played a second note, all at once. I could swear I heard a recorder joined in, bleating like a duck being strangled. The dungeon's green braziers flared with a violent uproar, casting a flash of neon lightning. In that instant, I saw it.

  A monstrous shadow extended out from my fallen body, imposing itself on the alley wall behind it, a yawning ferocious maw, arms outstretched. Jag'thar raised his staff and fired off a series of void blasts, blowing apart the alley wall. But the beams only enlarged the nightmarish shadow.

  Realizing he was only feeding the beast, Jag'thar dropped his staff and launched himself into the air. He made it ten feet off the ground, when a malformed claw emerged from the darkness. It wrapped around the lich, squeezing him like a juice box. His plate armor folded inward, the shadow disappeared, and the lich fell from the sky.

  Jag’thar crashed next to my body, which stirred on its own while I watched from a birds eye view.

  Excuse me?

  Wisps of darkness curled off me like smoke as I stood up, head hung low. I grabbed Jag'thar by his crushed soup can leg, turned, and flung him into the rippling maw.

  Nice work. But can I get my body back?

  "Cyprus?" Westcott called out from the end of the alley. "Go check on him. See if he's OK."

  He pushed Hendrix out in front of him.

  "Sir, he looks fucking insane!”

  What an astute observation. My eyes were swirling with darkness and tar colored goo was running out of my nose and mouth.

  Hendrix glanced over his shoulder and Westcott was hauling ass in the opposite direction. I watched my body take three wobbly steps toward the mage before I stopped and threw my head back.

  A shadow tendril shot out of my mouth and curled down the alley, latching onto the mage's foot. He screamed as the tendril retracted, reeling him in like a hooked fish. Flames erupted from his hands.

  A fireball soared through the darkness and engulfed my body, lighting me up like a pine tree drenched in gasoline.

  Stop, drop, and roll! What the hell am I doing?!

  While I watched myself burn, the tendril tightened around his ankle, dragging him against the stone, unaffected by the fire. The friction robbed him of his flesh before my flaming body bent over, picked him up by the throat and tossed him into the maw.

  The flames engulfing my body extinguished and I collapsed face first on the floor.

  Blink.

  My vision snapped away, and I found myself tracking Westcott. He ran down another corridor, darkness nipping at his heels. Glossy black swirled across the walls on either side of him. His screams joined with the hollow wails seeping out of the dark.

  "What the fuck is this?" he shouted into the flooding void.

  He took a sharp turn down another corridor, then hit a dead end.

  Shadows crashed in behind him like waves. Soon the dead end rippled and the maw appeared. Westcott stared down its gullet. Crooked fangs emerged from the wall, hissing as a shapeless jaw unhinged itself.

  Lights bright as the sun flashed across the ceiling.

  But all I saw was darkness.