As soon as Domah admitted defeat, the golden threads connecting both Arden’s soul core and Domah’s sigil changed position. It was too fast to be called a movement. In an instant, the threads wrapped around Arden’s hands, preventing them from landing his attack. His hands were stopped instantly by the golden strings mere centimeters from Domah’s head.

  When they were caught, the air billowed out from below him, blowing Domah’s hair with the force of a jet engine.

  Arden looked down at Domah with anger on his face. He looked like he wanted to tear the weakened Archon apart.

  “After all of that, you won't even let me get one real hit in?”

  “I have no more power. I can no longer fight.”

  “Cut the shit!” Arden yelled. “You put me through hell! You killed me billions of times when I had no power! But the moment you lose power, the fight ends!?”

  Arden was beyond furious. He was an avatar of hate right now. He could only see red from the injustice, and it wasn’t just because he was inside his soul cluster.

  All of a sudden, he felt sharp pain and a cold chill, like he had been stabbed with an icicle. It was a kind of phantom pain, as it came from somewhere outside his body.

  He looked at his soul core, still tangled in the golden threads. They were vibrating against his soul, threatening him not to continue.

  The deal was to battle until one of them could no longer fight, with both of their souls on the line. Continuing to attack now would rend his soul apart.

  He glared, still suspended, at the Archon wearing his sister’s skin. With a long, slow breath, Arden slackened his fists and dismissed the biotic alloy around his body. When it disappeared, the golden string holding him disappeared as well.

  Arden fell the short distance to the ground and landed on his feet. His red inhuman eyes were still locked on Domah’s. They continued to glow, daring her to make a move and give him the opportunity to continue their game. He gave off the impression of a wounded feral animal.

  He remembered so many stories where the main character, on a quest for revenge, finally gets to their object of hatred, and in an enraging turn of events, they decided not to complete their revenge, believing that doing so would make them no better than the villain.

  Arden thoroughly believed that the creators of those stories had never truly had someone they despised with their entire existence. They never had the electric feeling running through them that told them to make that person hurt.

  And Arden wanted to make Domah hurt.

  Even though he won, it wasn’t enough. Even though she was the god of making others submit, she had submitted herself.

  But Arden still wasn’t satisfied.

  “Your humanity is showing, o brother mine.”

  All of the muscles in Arden’s bodies tensed up, and he snapped at Domah.

  “Good! I never wanted to be an Archon! I wanted to live as a human with the people I love! But you…” Arden bared his teeth. “You and the Archons just keep fucking with me! Beyond abandoned his previous host, and the power fell to me! Life’s agent almost erased my existence because of it! And you’re the worst! Sya was never a part of all of this, so why did you and Yaan make her into a prime vessel!? What did she ever do to you, huh!? What did I ever do to you Archons!?”

  Arden grabbed the trembling Domah by the collar. She wasn’t trembling because she was scared, but because it was the way a human body reacted in front of a wrathful force. That was why, despite her shaking eyes and trembling body, she was able to speak in a clear level tone.

  “You have done nothing.”

  “Then why!?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know. You don’t know!? You are a god! An Archon! Knowledge about the Archons is only meant for Archons, right!? So why don’t you know about this!?

  “Do you know about the life patterns of ants? Do you know exactly how long the dirt earth your feet took to be created? Of course not. It’s below you. We are the same. We don’t bother with the knowledge of lesser beings. It is worthless to us.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Arden let go of Domah’s collar and shoved her back.

  “A lesser being climbed to your position, and beat you.”

  “Watch your words, brother.”

  “I will not. I’m a lesser being, so dignity isn’t one of my strengths. Your kind will want to learn how I was able to do it.”

  “You speak as if you aren’t one of us now. You must shed your mortal soul and join us.”

  “I will never abandon my humanity.”

  Arden felt a splitting pain in both his mind and his soul. He had overburdened both during this fight billions of lives long. That last exertion on his soul made Arden realize just how exhausted he was.

  Domah felt Arden’s bloodlust finally begin to diminish, and her body slowly stopped shivering. She looked at the man who she had to reluctantly call a brother.

  She wanted to kill him, and strip him of his status as an Archon.

  He had utterly humiliated her. From trapping her in his own soul, to losing a fight with him, everything that he did was a blemish on her record.

  And he did so without bowing to her even once.

  That was his gravest sin.

  But it also intrigued her to no end.

  “You are the only being I’ve ever met that never yielded. Your life itself will exist as a permanent reminder of my own failings. Before I honor our deal, I must ask. RedShift, why didn’t you submit?”

  Arden slowly blinked then looked at her with tired eyes. There was not a hint of bloodlust anymore. His incomprehensible might that frightened Domah’s body so much after their fight was gone.

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  At this moment, he wasn’t an Archon.

  He was just a human. Just a tired man.

  That tired man who defied the will of submission itself in a neverending onslaught against both his soul and his body opened his mouth to speak.

  “If you can’t figure that out, then you have no right to call anyone a sibling.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  Silver mist started rising from Domah’s body. The blight essence lifted off of Domah’s avatar, and it began to slowly break down as the mist climbed higher in the air towards her dim sigil in the sky

  When only the faint traces of blight remained, Domah spoke with a disembodied voice one last time. Despite there being only mist in the air, she spoke with her voice, not her soul.

  “When the sigil disappears, I, along with my power will be gone. Your sister will wake up with her memories and her body intact. She won’t be a husk, but she won’t be a Blight Walker either. She will be something much more strange. Something that shatters the laws of causality.”

  ‘A paradox.’ Arden thought. ‘Looks like she won’t have a choice in becoming a Starborn after all.’

  “Do not be worried by her changes. I am certain she will be of great help to you on your future endeavors, whatever they may be. I bid you goodbye for now, o brother mine. But this will not be the end.”

  Her last words carried a threatening promise, but Arden didn’t care. So long as the reunion came later, he would be content that this challenge was over.

  Arden watched in silence as the stream of silver mist disappeared when it completed its journey to Domah’s sigil. Once all of the Blight essence was gone, pieces of the sigil started disappearing as well, like it was burning from an invisible flame.

  When the sigil vanished, so too did the golden strings binding both it and Arden’s soul core.

  Arden gave a massive sigh of relief and fell backwards to the floor of blood. He looked up at the soul core and laughed.

  He actually did it.

  Seven motes of light orbited the core. One gray, one white, and five red. One was missing.

  The Bone Talons, Rogier’s Tree, Stoneflesh Shroud, Oath of Blood, Codex Momenti Proximi, Transplantation Boon, and Forge of the Imaginarium were still in place, having not been used.

  But the golden Spark of Paradox was absent.

  Arden wasn't surprised.

  He was the one who used it before the fight began, after all.

  It was a one-time use Satellite that had the power to grant a wish, and Arden had used the limited amount of Paradox energy the best he could.

  It wasn't what allowed him to come back to life billions of times. It wasn't what allowed him to quickly learn how to use soul attacks after only knowing the principle behind it. It wasn't even what allowed him to stay steadfast.

  He used the Spark of Paradox on something much smaller than knowledge or power, but was simultaneously more important than anything else.

  “You expect me to degrade myself to your level and engage in combat?”

  That was what Domah first said in response to Arden’s suggestion of a duel. She held nothing but contempt for the very idea of a fight.

  Fighting was beneath her.

  Arden was beneath her.

  So then why did she accept the duel?

  Was it because Arden piqued her interest?

  Was it because Arden was burning with defiance that she wanted to snuff out?

  Did she feel duty-bound to make the mortal bow?

  It was none of them.

  Domah accepted the agreement because Arden wished that she would. Not only did she agree to the terms of the deal, the Spark of Paradox went further.

  It made her believe that it was her idea.

  Arden couldn't help but marvel at the might of a single Spark of Paradox. That was just the leftovers of the paradox energy used by the Lone Star, the Stargazer, according to Domah, that made Arden take ownership of his Legacies.

  “I wonder what a larger collection of paradox energy could do.”

  Arden had planned to use the Spark of Paradox to turn Sya into either a Blighted Starborn, or a mundane human if she wanted that instead.

  Circumstances arose that made him use it prematurely, but he couldn't say it was a bad tradeoff. His gains were nothing to scoff at.

  He formed a connection with an Archon, and according to the terms of the pact, they were no longer enemies. They weren't allies, but they wouldn't actively antagonize each other, no matter how much Arden wanted to.

  Arden learned so much more about the Archons than he ever thought he would be able to in the real world thanks to Domah’s monologue.

  He didn't know how many there were, or even what they were the Archons of, but he was satisfied just seeing how strong one of them was.

  Well, not satisfied. But still, he was happy to learn more about what it was that he now was.

  The might of an Archon was beyond insane. Arden didn't believe Domah was lying when she said that the universe would end if one of them truly descended. Domah was in a diminished state in a hostile setting, and she effortlessly killed Arden billions of times.

  It was ridiculous. Arden gave her an infinitely small amount of her true power, so small that it couldn't even be quantified or expressed in either words or numbers, but it was still enough to act as a god.

  “I guess a chunk of infinity would still be infinite,” Arden muttered to himself. “Will I ever be able to become that strong?”

  Arden thought about it, but he realized he didn't want to be a cosmic force of nature like that.

  He enjoyed the final fight against Domah in the same way he enjoyed fighting against the Maverick so many lives ago. The feeling of putting it all on the line in a test of skill and strength was, in truth, fun. And the power that he was able to display felt satisfying to the point of eroticism.

  A god with infinite power wouldn't be able to enjoy anything like that. According to Domah, enjoying anything was against what it meant to be an Archon, as emotions were a defect of humanity.

  The more Arden thought about it, the more he thought about the description of his Constellation. That he would some day abandon his humanity for power.

  He wondered if he would even be given the choice.

  Just like he had been somehow selected to be the one to inherit Beyond's Legacy without any personal input, he wondered if he had already been chosen to forsake his humanity.

  He was scared.

  He was scared because the nagging feeling that it was true.

  Whatever game that was set to play out with him in the middle was set in motion an incalculable amount of time ago.

  It seemed impossible to change the rules at this point.

  Arden repeated the words that quickly became a mantra to him over the past few months.

  “Impossible doesn't mean that something can't happen, but shouldn't. Impossible things have happened. I'm living proof.”

  He would change his fate. He wouldn't be some insignificant game piece. He would be in control. He didn't know when he'd get to that point or even how, but it didn't matter now.

  If he wanted to be free, he needed power first.

  He needed to get stronger.

  He wouldn't be able to manifest the power of his soul outside of his soul, for fairly self-evident reasons.

  Growing as a fighter was the best option for now, until he learned the secret of the soul. And lucky for him, he happened to know the best teacher in the world.

  She would train him like she had done before.

  And Sya as well.

  “Neither a husk, nor a Blight Walker…” Arden thought aloud.

  Whatever she would become, she would be a Paradox as well. Someone to whom the laws of reality were mere suggestions. Arden wondered what she would become.

  It was time to see her again.

  With a simple thought, Arden returned to reality.