The crack of violence filled the halls as they ascended. David rushed into it, his body still tingling from his battle of wills against the Watcher. He could sense their eyes and the weight of their judgment. David relished it. A part of him wanted to be scared. He was a king, but here, within the laws of this tower, he could be caged like every other person. But he could fight back. And he sensed the Watcher was being held back by something. Perhaps a rule David didn’t know yet.

  He ignored the Watcher’s gaze. The battle in front of him was fast and deadly. Shadows moved like sculpted smoke, slashing at their reinforcement. David watched the slaughter, searching for the priests, summoning them.

  “Elisha!” David called over the din of blades and screams. “The priests! They are hiding.”

  Elisha didn’t answer, but David saw his brother vanish into the shadows a second later. The black wisps of his armor spread like spilled ink, and the battlefield dimmed in his wake. He was hunting now—silent, lethal. David trusted him to find the cowards fueling the spell.

  A surge of essence spilled out of him as his domain covered the hall. His perception broadened, and David blinked into the extended sensory feed. Within his domain, he was everywhere at once. His mind dragged at first, but soon David could see and sense almost everything.

  “Selass!” David called. Above him, golden arrows sparked as they multiplied, turning into a controlled shower of death. Zoey’s arrows bent, dodging allies to meet priests and shadows.

  A shadow exploded, torn from the inside. David sensed it piece itself back together as he walked toward Selass. He sidestepped to the left, dodging a sword moving so slowly at the rate he could feel it coming. The priest stumped past David, pulled by the force of his swing. David rammed his elbow into the side of the man’s head, letting him fall as he walked away.

  None of these cursed filths deserves the mercy you just gave him, Ignis argued, his rage brimming. The dragon had been silent for most of the night, but David felt him simmer. David blinked the emotion away, narrowing it so it would filter into his focused mind.

  “Soon.” David summoned his gauntlet quickly. A small ball of blazing blue fire flew at him, and David’s gauntlet reached into the flames. The priest’s eyes widened as his attack shattered, shedding around David’s hand. He took a step back away from David, then turned and fled.

  David watched him vanish into the crowd and felt his death only moments later. The golden arrow jutting out of his chest turned to motes of golden light, leaving the dead priest.

  David summoned his sword and grunted at the surge of hot fury he could feel coming from Ignis’s bone. He could suppress the dragon’s emotions leaking to him, but this was different. David let it roll through him.

  “Elisha!” David called. He had been searching, too, but he couldn’t find the priests. Which meant they were not in the hall.

  He leaned back, moving his head away from an abrupt swing. His enemy was not a priest. He moved like a mercenary, with real force behind every swing. Yet he wore the robe of a priest. David chuckled.

  “Is this what you have gotten to, Balek?” David asked, crouching low under a wide arch swing aimed for his face. He slashed the man’s ankle, severing it in one swing. He ignored the fake priest’s cry as he stumbled back and fell on the bleeding stump. David hacked open his face and walked past the dying man.

  Slowly, he could see a path to Selass. The woman and her group were fighting other fake priests. David’s domain throbbed, and his sense flared. Something was battering at it, trying to crack his domain.

  “Not the Watcher,” Vith said with mild irritation. David acknowledged it. He didn’t think it was the Watcher either.

  And it posed no real threat.

  He caught a spear by the shaft and pulled the woman behind it to him before running her through with his sword.

  The wet sound of her death and her shuddering gasps were loud in the chaos. Her eyes moved with frightened confusion, searching his face until David shoved her away to carve into another man.

  David felt gutted for every acolyte he killed, but he could see the hold Balek had on them. Their blind faith. It was a weapon of a kind. One he envied.

  “Selass!” David called again. The woman’s sword cut a short man’s arm at the shoulder. Then she whirled, her armored frame turning like a ballerina to deliver a cleaving chop that took the man by the chest.

  Selass staggered, almost walking into a stray blade. Then whipped away like a cat, spinning on her tired feet to plant her sword in the left side of her attacker. The blade went in and came out the other end.

  She pulled it forward, spilling the merc’s guts out. David cringed.

  “You succeeded!” Selass said. “I…we could...”

  David stopped listening. Behind him, a group of four was coming for him. He turned to face them, eyes glinting as orbs of flames formed around him. It was easier now. The essence in the hall surged to his command, flowing like an angry sea-beat in reflection of his building rage.

  [Arcane Magic: Call of Wrath]

  Instead of four, he made eight. They were smaller, denser. He folded the spell on itself, making it tighter. He respected the priests for not stopping their charge. Even though their fears were as tangible as wind. They ran for him like crazed bulls. And he burned them. Four balls flew forward, igniting on contact. Another four flew toward Selass, then past her to torch up the two shadows lurking above her, slowly sliding down a pillar to join the battle.

  David ignored the burning priests, their bodies crumpling as the flames ate every part of them. Their screams were dug into the noise of the battle until they died.

  “You found more allies,” David said, gesturing to the people fighting in the hall. They were more than Alice promised or David expected. Selass nodded, her breathing audible. She smelled like rot and blood. Her armor was covered in the latter.

  “Alice called for help,” Selass struggled to say. David nodded. He swung his sword casually, and a brief wind sliced into a charging acolyte. The man’s death came so fast he didn’t feel it. Selass made a sound of revulsion.

  “We have to leave the temple,” David howled. Selass parried the attack of a huge, obviously fake priest, and David finished him off by slashing his chest open. His sword went through the minimal armor under his priest's robe.

  “We can’t! Unless you can burn through the Shadows?” Selass said, turning to the shadows that David destroyed. They were slowly reforming. The first one was almost whole again. David grunted. The air in the hall was rife with the stench of whatever made up the Shadows.

  “I can’t destroy all of them at once,” David said, creating another eight balls of fire. An acolyte stopped before he reached David, then turned around and ran. David heard a satisfied growl from Ignis before burning the Shadows again.

  The black popped as they burned. But no matter how much flames he used, he could feel their regeneration working again. Bringing them back to life.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “This is why we have to go,” David said. “Rally your people, I will figure something out. If we don’t leave the temple, they will bury us with their overwhelming numbers. Out in the streets, there is the chance of escaping.”

  “The Watcher?” Selass asked. David nodded. He wasn’t the only one scared of the Watcher. He still couldn’t understand why Balek’s priests were scared of the Watcher, even though there was some kind of partnership there. There was no time to figure it out.

  “I couldn’t find them,” Elisha said, walking out of an archway made of pure black. He looked past David, catching sight of the two Shadows forming behind them. Selass flowed forward like a calm sea, peeling away from them to save a man with pale skin and three eyes from a cluster of acolytes.

  She cut through them like a slaughterer going through dead meat. Her strikes were true, every swing as powerful as the last.

  “How did she find so many?” Elisha asked. David shook his head. The power nibbling at his domain was a constant throb now. There was no pain, but a sensation. He turned his attention toward it and immediately saw the acolytes at the left edge of the hall.

  Through the throng of the dead and the mass of those fighting, David saw the flow of something. A sick, green light. His heart sank and he gripped Elisha.

  “Take me there.” David pointed in the direction of the acolytes. Everything in him told him he had to stop whatever they were summoning, or doing. Elisha created the archway again. It formed slowly. Painfully slow. David saw the confusion on Elisha’s face and cursed.

  “They are sealing us out,” David said. He felt a second throb, this one more like a scratching. It came from behind him. He spun to find something similar. Then two more sprouted, making four. The four corners of the hall. Not good, David thought.

  “You can crush it!” Aza warned. “It is a powerful rune seal, but it is unstable because it works with the power it steals and seals away. Gathering the different essences in this hall is chaos itself.”

  “It can be tamed,” David whispered, finishing Aza’s message.

  “What are you talking about?” Elisha asked. David pointed in the direction of the acolytes making the rune.

  “They are sealing us out. If those things continue, they will seal the essence in the hall, making us powerless.”

  “You take one, I will send the others,” David nodded. The black archway groaned, then cracks formed along it, tearing into the spell.

  Elisha shoved David into it before it collapsed. The last thing David saw before the hall vanished was Elisha’s back.

  A world of darkness swallowed him whole. There was no air to breathe, and no path to walk. But that didn’t last long. He was thrown back into the noise of battle, confused for a moment.

  He wasn’t exactly where he wanted to be, but he was close.

  A wall of acolytes barred him from reaching the rune. Behind them, a shadow stood, watching him. David didn’t have to look in the hooded eyes of the acolytes to see their fears. They knew who he was. Those who didn’t know him before had probably seen him burn someone as he strolled through the bedlam.

  David took a step forward and heard many feet shuffle back away from him. The rune light glowed behind them, projecting into a pillar of white light.

  “Burn them all,” Vith called. “If that spell is completed, it will be worse for you and the others.”

  [Arcane Magic: Hell’s Mist]

  David felt a heaviness in his heart as the air sparked and warmed up. He hated the spell because of how horrifying it was, but it was the best way to dissuade anyone else from getting in his way.

  Unlike the name, there was no mist. The air grew hot slowly. It was a concentrated spell. One he could use for two or three minutes, depending on the space he wanted it to cover. This time, he didn’t need it to do much. It worked slowly because of the rune, but it was fast enough.

  The first acolyte hissed as the heat pinched at him. Then another cried, rubbing his arm. Every slide of his fingers peeled his skin away, uncovering flesh. The burning intensified as David walked past the suffering acolytes.

  The air melted the Shadow. It tried to fight it, but even as it struggled, it melted away. It continued to regenerate, but it wasn’t fast enough to attack.

  David stood over the rune, staring at the structure in awe. It was complex and filled with loops, which he guessed were channels for essence. Once again, he wished he could use runes. Carlos would have been excited to see it.

  David summoned his gauntlet, knelt at the edge of the rune, and placed his hand on it.

  “Stop!’ Vith yelled. David froze, his hand a breath from the growing pillar.

  “If you tame it, the essence it has gathered will explode, destroying this place and everyone in it. It’s a trap!”

  He slowly pulled away, feeling like he’d almost jumped from a cliff into the gaping mouth of a volcano. Then he turned, his eyes searching frantically as a realization dawned on him.

  “The others,” David said. “They don’t know!”

  David paced for a moment. He couldn’t yell through the battle raging in the hall. And he couldn’t go everywhere at once. If any of the runes exploded, it would kill everyone—enemies and allies. He had to do something.

  “Vith, Aza, Ignis?”

  Will leaving this one reduce the effect of the others? Ignis asked.

  “No,” Aza said. Vith was stewing in something close to annoyance. For some reason, she didn’t like Ignis. Or perhaps it had more to do with the transformation she was experiencing. David ignored her frustration.

  “Not at all?” David asked, turning back to the rune. “What if they are all linked?”

  “They are not,” Aza said patiently. David looked up. The pillar was almost complete. The others, too.

  But your domain can link them, Ignis suggested.

  “And the essence storm will be focused on you,” Aza said. “With your powers restricted, you could die.”

  David sat at the edge of the rune again. He closed his eyes and sighed into the waiting hold of his domain. Letting go broadened his senses, spreading him all over the hall.

  Once again, he felt like a god. He could see from one edge to the other. West of him, David found Dellon fighting through a crowd of priests and a lone Shadow to get to the rune. Zoey supported him from above, her arrows falling on some kind of shield from one of the priests.

  Farther from him, Selass was almost close to the rune. She left a trail of dead acolytes in her wake.

  Elisha seemed to be fighting his rune. He didn’t kill anyone. Instead, he tied them down with webs of black, tightening strands.

  David reached out to the runes. Each had a flood of essence flowing through them, fueling the spell. He plucked at that power, once again hating that he couldn’t see and feel essence like Alice could. Instead, it was like holding lightning while it crackled at you.

  Using himself as a conduit, David connected all four runes. The power rushing through pushed at him, expanding him. David forced it down, holding the destruction at bay.

  With all four connected, David reached through the pillar of light and placed his gauntlet on the rune. A thrum rushed him, and the very fabric of his existence vibrated like sand on a drum.

  David’s mind enlarged and went white from the overload.

  He was hollowed out, burnt completely by the current of essence.

  This will be bad, Ignis warned.

  It was too late.

  [Chaos has been tamed!]

  “Here it co—”

  Aza’s voice vanished in the crashing of the world around David. Everything fragmented—him, the hall, the people. They became shards, components, then even that exploded and David only knew pain. The torment grew, sprouting like a magic bean in his veins—thorny and venomous.

  David couldn’t hear his own scream. The sensation of every cell in his body burning drowned him. He knew pain, he had faced immense suffering. But this was a punishment from the lowest gut of hell.

  Something cracked. It was a distinct snap. David opened his eyes to find someone looking down at him. The face was blurry while everything was startlingly in focus.

  [The Watcher has stopped the essence storm!]

  [The Watcher has broken a tower rule!]

  [The Watcher has bestowed upon you a small boon!]

  “For protecting my domain,” the face said. Its voice was small, timid.

  David stayed on the floor, too exhausted to move. He didn’t see her full form or her face, but there was something ethereal about the watcher.

  “Get up, David,” Aza called. “The night is not over.”