Clarent flashed forwards as I charged into the midst of the ancients. A gout of sapphire fire burned against my skin as one of the ancients began to shift, taking on the shape of some sort of dragon. They all began to morph from the amorphous beings of thought into more tangible creatures. One took on the massive form of a four-armed humanoid, its back covered in thorns and spikes like a porcupine. The other took on the visage of a swarm of armored insects, their buzzing the sound a saw makes when ripping through metal. The last one mirrored me, its body a glossy black with six arms and in its hand its own version of Clarent, though its lightning was all white and silver instead of crimson.

  I rolled across the ground to put out the fire; the false Clarent slashed down but Ares blocked it with my spear. The jaws of the dragon ancient snapped down but I was on the move again and stabbed my weapons into its throat as it snapped down. I roared, releasing Voice of the Chasm and blasting away the mirror copy of me and the swarm of insects. The spike-backed ancient swung down with its club. I blocked the attack by crossing my spear and gauntlet-sword. The ground cracked under my feet, small craters forming as the force of the strike pushed me into the black marble.

  The tail of the dragon struck me from behind, staggering me forwards. I grunted in pain as spikes shot out of its tail and some type of venom or acid began to burn through my skin. The swarm shot back into the fight, the stingers and pincers of the insects biting and stabbing into me. My skin was beyond the hardness of diamond but these wasps seemed to just phase through my skin and their poison caused a maddening itch. I fully activated Wrathful Meditation and the pain of the acidic poison eating its way out of me disappeared.

  The Void angels were the only reason I wasn’t already dead. They were dying by the second but they dove through the air, taking hits meant for me and slashed and cut into the flanks of the ancients whenever they got a chance. The ancients smashed the angels down to the ground, their souls rising up without their protective shells and fleeing the battlefield to stand and watch as the rest of their brethren continued to fight on beside me.

  Lightning sparked from my fingers, going from insect to insect within the swarm. Some dropped out but there were millions within that mass and I couldn’t even see a noticeable drop in size. The mirror copy of me swung at me with its own Clarent, spear, gauntlet sword, and claws. The attacks from all the ancients came in from all directions and I could barely block half of them. Each one that hit did devastating damage to my body.

  I lost half my torso when the dragon’s jaws closed on me and he ripped off half my chest along with the arms on that side of my body. I activated Void Shield immediately but was hit by all the mirror-copies weapons; they pierced through my skin and ribs. I couldn’t feel the pain but the damage did register as my hands grew weaker and had difficulty holding onto my sword. Everything looked just a little dimmer. I needed to cut the number of ancients down and a drawn-out fight was not in my favor here.

  The spines from the spiked ancient shot into me with the force or slugs from a railgun. I was pinned to the ground and the dragon’s jaws descended on me. I ripped the spikes out, sacrificing a great deal of my flesh to do so but I rolled free in time. The swarm of insects began stabbing into me. I didn’t wave them off and instead breathed in as I opened up my soul.

  Almost immediately the ancients sensed my exposed soul and cut into me. This pain I couldn’t block out, but I pushed past it as I bit down into the soul of the swarm ancient. While it had taken the form of a swarm of insects, it had one singular soul and I held onto that like a pit bull, not letting go no matter the blows that rained down on me. I funneled the energy into my soul. I didn’t need to raise my own strength and I needed a way to empower my vassals. If the angels could hold their ground better, there was a chance we could live through this.

  I chose Phalanx Commander as the ability to improve. I pushed ability after ability into it but nothing hit until Piercing Charge collided and was sucked into it. The use of Piercing Charge inspired me and I selected Shield Wall next and pushed that in and it, too, was sucked in. The last of the ancient’s energy was drawn into the vortex and the ability stabilized.

  The swarm of insects blinked out of existence as the energy used to sustain it was gone, consumed by me. My body spasmed as my muscles writhed and my fast twitch muscles twisted and changed. My mind went black for a moment as the overload of attributes increasing overwhelmed me.

  The mirror-copy of me swung its weapons at me but stumbled back as an invisible shield appeared in front of me. The sapphire fire burned against the shield and my arm blistered on the other side, but the fire didn’t pass it. An angel landed beside me, then another, and another. Raising their hands, the fire passed over the shields in a wave. Finally, the shields exploded outwards, and the ancients were blown back by the force of it.

  The spiked ancient charged forwards, the first to recover from the blast.

  Him, I directed the Void angels with the telepathy from my helm. Charge attack it, one after the other.

  A Void angel shot forwards and slashed with its swords, hitting the ancient from twenty-five feet away from the spectral extended reach of its weapon. The fly-by attack was immediately followed up by another attack from a different angel, then another and another.

  “World Forge,” I said, forming new bodies for the angels that had died at the start of the battle.

  The lost souls rose from the earth, their throats screaming a war cry as they joined the chorus. The dragon and the mirror-copy moved back into the fight. They slashed out at the Void Angels, but their invisible shields flashed up and they froze midair instead of going flying. Swords began cutting into the dragon’s back as the angels began to harry it, no longer being destroyed in a single strike from the attacks that came their way. Even though they were all still Rank one, my ability granted them the strength they needed to stay in the fight long enough to inflict meaningful damage.

  The mirror-copy of me was less effected by the changes to the Void angels. Its smaller size let it sidestep their attacks and it spun around their shields and stabbed forwards. Its strikes always maimed or outright destroyed the Void angels. What’s more, now that they knew I could recreate them, they didn’t let the lost souls go. Rather than slowly eat them over months and years, the ancient bit down and sucked them in, just as I had done to the ancients.

  I charged forwards, meeting the mirror-copy in direct combat. Our blades clashed as we struck and blocked in what must have seemed a choreographed scene to an outsider. The ancient had copied me, its body wreathed in black smoke; I didn’t know if it could copy the effects of my abilities, but it could apparently copy my skill in combat. I couldn’t land a hit on it, and neither could it on me as we canceled each other out. If it wasn’t for the Void angels, that standoff could have gone on indefinitely, but right now those angels were engaged with the other ancients.

  The copy and I began to try and use other methods to break the stalemate. Scarlet lightning met silver lightning as we blasted each other. I roared using Voice of the Chasm and a roar answered me in return, the sound waves colliding with such force that the two of us were thrown apart. I stretched out my hand and gripped it around the throat with Telekinesis and felt an answering strangling hold around mine. A void angel struck the mirror-copy from behind and it staggered, the grip around me loosening as it lost focus. The angel was instantly killed and the soul devoured for transgressing the ancient, but another Void angel immediately took its place, sacrificing itself to buy me another moment of distraction.

  I bit my tongue in frustration; this ancient was the hardest of them all to fight, but I couldn’t take it out first. I would have to accept the sacrifice of my vassals and let them pass into non-existence; I would not let their sacrifice be in vain. I charged the spiked ancient as it batted at the Void angels dive bombing it.

  My attack took it from behind as I tackled it to the ground and began tearing into it like a wild animal. I sucked in the beings soul and it formed a violent ball of energy. Before I could even select an ability, the vortex sucked in one of its own. I watched as my Foresight ability was ripped free and absorbed into the twisting mass of energy where it began to mutate. I pushed my other perception abilities in and it sucked in Bestial Senses and Tremor Soles. I finished off the ancient, already beaten to scraps by the Void angels, and the ability stabilized.

  The spiked ancient was gone, leaving me with the two most dangerous of the four to fight, I couldn’t fight either of them right this second because I was blind as my eyes mutated again.

  I blinked as my vision came back to me and I could see once again. The dragon had smashed half a dozen angels to the ground and maimed a few hundred more of them. I charged forwards, ducking down and bringing up my invisible shield as it blasted me with a torrent of fire.

  “Look out!” Ares warned me, but it was already too late.

  I stood up and tried to turn around, but a massive fist struck me. The mirror-copy had grown in size like I could with Blood of Kronos. I didn’t know how far its mirroring effects went, but they did seem fairly accurate in what they could glean from me. Its hand grabbed me around the neck and chest and began to squeeze as it slammed me against the ground again and again.

  Bones snapped and broke, my vision went red and dim, and I could feel shattered bones dig into my heart and organs and splinter into my muscles. I had to activate Void Shield, but I was still trapped in the titanic grip as it continued to smash me down. I struggled to break free, but my strength was equal to my copies, and I couldn’t push past my own limits. I tried to swell in size but some sort of energy field held my current size in place.

  The ancient bit into my soul. I tried to use that opportunity to draw in its energy, but this one was smarter. It didn’t take long bites, but instead quick snaps that were never long enough for me to get a grip on its energy and reverse the flow. I could feel my soul weakening, not just my body, and a feeling of dark lethargy overcame me. My body, mind, and soul all began to slip away. The angels rushed in to help me but my copy swatted them out of the air or ignored their attacks as I continued to drift farther and farther towards nothingness.

  A woman’s scream cut the air; it rang through the Void piercing through the chaos of battle and cutting through my soul. The sound was full of pain but not the agony of battle. Guinevere, my daughter… I had to fight for them. I roared and activated Void Shield again. I pushed and got just a little bit of space then activated Phantom Form. I’d avoided doing that in the Void due to how every creature here did Soul damage, but the time for that restriction was gone.

  My own body grew in size as I matched my copy and we clashed together again.

  --

  Guinevere heaved out a breath and screamed again. She’d held it in but the more real the world around her grew, the more the pain intensified. She sucked in another breath, reaching down as she slid back along the blankets and fur to crouch. She could feel her daughter moving as she pushed again and again.

  “Come on,” she said, her voice strained with pain. “Your father needs us.”

  She pushed again, screaming again, the sound echoing through the temple around her. She pushed and screamed and heard an echoing roar from down the mountain. Sucking in a deep breath, she pushed and screamed a final time, and a soft scream answered her. Guinevere collapsed to the ground. She reached down and picked up the wet and red baby as she bawled her lungs out.

  “It’s ok, it’s ok,” Guinevere cooed as she rocked her back and forth, wiping her face clean. She took the cleansing cloth Mordred had left with her and wiped herself and her baby clean in an instant. She gently blew into her daughter’s face as she slowly calmed and relaxed into her mother’s arms.

  --

  A soft cry joined the screams and my heart skipped a beat as I realized what it meant. I still felt weakened from the attack on my soul, but I had a new source of strength now. Void angels dove at my copy, slashing it from behind. I extended my hand, gripping it with Telekinesis in its distraction and holding it still as I charged forwards.

  I drove Clarent forwards and into its chest. My soul bit into it and its soul bit back, our bodies and souls locked in combat again equally matched. But the angels tipped the scales in my favor. I gained ground little by little, drawing its energy into my soul and making it mine.

  I chose Telekinesis and funneled the energy into it. I took in more and more of its energy, the ancient lashing out spiritually and physically, its attacks with the desperate fervor and violence of an animal caught in a trap. My other abilities were rejected until Chain Lighting was selected and absorbed by the vortex of energy. I tried my other abilities, Voice of the Chasm and Helheim’s Scream, but they weren’t accepted. Then I tried Dying Star and it was absorbed right away. I tore into the final remnant of the mirror-copies soul and drained the last vestiges of the divine energy it contained and the vast well of spiritual power that formed it. The ancient disappeared and the ability stabilized.

  My soul burned and expanded, I could feel everything I was become…more. I was more real, the ground was more real. The portal had stabilized the mountain with the influx of reality, but now, it wasn’t just more real, it was real and physical as the mortal world.

  The last ancient, the dragon, looked at what had happened to its three companions and tried to flee, but I wasn’t having it.

  I raised my hand and a black orb appeared above the mountain. I pushed more and more ethereal into it. I felt something strain in my soul but I pushed past the limitations the ability wanted to place on itself.

  “World Forge,” I said.

  I used the effects of the other ability to stabilize the black sun, crystalizing the energy as it grew larger and larger. The area was both lit by the silver light and also cast into darkness. The dragon roared in agony as the silver light reached it. Its scales and flesh began to smoke. The angels harried the dragon and it crashed into the ground where it continued to burn under the light of the Void star.

  Striding forwards, I drove my fist into the dragon and began to draw out its energy. It roared in agony but the angels landed across its body, stabbing their swords into it and pinning it to the ground. The energy sucked in Voice of the Chasm so I pushed Helheim’s Scream and Rampaged towards it since they were both similar abilities to it. The vortex of mutating energy accepted both abilities and demanded more and more of the dragon’s life force. I fed it more of the energy and it stabilized once it had consumed it all and the dragon vanished from existence.

  My soul burned again and I fell to my knees as pure soul rending pain consumed me. My mind would have broken if it could have, but my mutations kept that from even being possible. Pushing up with my spear, I forced myself to my feet as my soul continued to burn.

  There was no time to worry about what being ‘worshiped’ meant. I took to the air, flying up the mountainside. The void star still hung in the air but I wasn’t even feeding it any more ethereal. It seemed to have reached some point where it was self-sufficient and continued to shine its nimbus of light out over the mountain city.

  Guinevere was leaned back against the pile of furs; the baby was so small as she suckeled at her mother’s breast. I knelt down beside her and looked down, feeling at a loss of what to do. I was a warrior, a fighter I was meant to protect and destroy, but now…there were no threats, no enemies to destroy, and I felt at a loss of what to do with myself.

  “Do you want to hold her?” Guinevere asked.

  “Yes,” I said, feeling the words lodge in my throat.

  My hands trembled as I took her from Guinevere. I hardly dared to hold her, afraid my great strength might somehow hurt her.

  “We never picked out a name for her,” Guinevere said.

  “Did you have one in mind?” I asked, running a finger over my daughter’s skin. She caught my finger with her hand, holding it with surprising strength. I could break free of course, but I let her hold my finger as I looked down at her angelic face, her eyes closed in peaceful sleep.

  “I did,” Guinevere said. “But I’ve thought of a better one now: Aurora, she came with the dawn.”

  I looked out over the silver light from the new sun.

  “She did,” I agreed. “It’s a good name.”

  Aurora’s eyes opened and I looked down into the black orbs flecked with brilliant silver and blue, like the night sky.