Che’ell-Cressen.

The Silent Spire.

If Gwen had been in possession of the Yinglong's original blessing, she might have uprooted the ornate dark rails with her bare hands and flung the log like a spear into the arena below to make a Percy-kabob.

Unfortunately, as a World Tree Vessel, a member of The Accord, and a guest of Che'ell-Cressen, she could only rage against the iron vine railing, channelling enough psychic frustration to make the tiny figure below visibly shudder.

"MistressVetra," she spoke while choking back mouthfuls of blood. "Did you know this? Did you know my brother was here?"

"No. I was not aware you were brood mates, nor would I have cared." Her hostess studied her with a critical eye, impressed by her vitriol. "Is there history between you? Did he murder a favoured sibling in a succession war?"

"Worse," Gwen growled, her mind trying to map the conspiracy at hand. "And Sobel? Did you know Sobel was here?"

"The Void Witch? Naturally. She has been a regular guest of Phyr, though she hasn't graced the pits in recent memory. It is her pet who fights, and it has done very well. Did you know he is her Favoured Fang?"

"What the hell does that mean?" Gwen tried her best to regain her composure. "Percy is her pet?"

The battle below was about to begin, and a new, terrible realisation was beginning to dawn.

If the rules of the Blood Pit, by Vetra's introduction, were simple. Only one party would leave, unless their sponsors allowed a draw or bartered for a participant's life. What this meant was that, considering the relationship of the two combatants below…

Either Percy murdered Matty.

Or Matty would end her brother.

Neither was acceptable to Gwen.

Matty was Elvia's faithful partner. The lad began his tenure as a bit of a prick, but he had more than once proved his loyalty and goodness. If anything, assuming the Nazarene Elvia believed in was real,then the god forsaken Blood Pits was not the place where Mathias should fall.

Concurrently, if anything, SHE would be the one to arrest Percy and bring him to justice. She would give the boy the beating he deserved, then drag him on his hands and knees to see Guo and Klavidya, and answer to uncle Jun, Ayxin, and the tribuneral overseeing the restoration of Tianjin.

"As a Favoured Fang, he has been blessed with the Essence of our mother, Quar-Tath, for proving himself in the arena time and time again. Not even Phyr had expected the boy to survive the ascension, and yet, your broodmate thrived. He's an impressive specimen…"

Nail after nail skewered Gwen's fevered prefrontal cortex.

The Kirin Amulet.

The Ashen Kirin.

To think her brother would fall right away into the embrace of yet another sadistic patron without so much as panting for breath.

"That little traitor…" She found herself filled with dangerous thoughts. "Vestra, how do I get down there? How do I halt the match?"

"Ah…" her hostess was well-amused. "You don't."

She turned to stare at the Dark Elf, desiring clarification, but the sound of a sudden thunderclap below expressly stated that whatever was happening now would play out and be done within the next few minutes.

"What's stopping me from teleporting down there?" She made the mental calculations. Somewhere between four to five Dimension Doors should do it.

"Why…" Vetra's teasing voice was full of cat-like curiosity. "Che'ell-Cressen itself, dear Regent. "Do you not know? We are well within the belly of our dear mother, the Great Weaver of the Web, Quar-Tath, Matron of the Long Night. If you disturb her slumber…"

Her hostess left the rest to her imagination.

Before Gwen could respond to her updated understanding of Che'ell-Cressen as a setting and a circumstance, the arena erupted into cheer.

Vlos Vthath.

The Blood Pit.

Usually, Percy preferred a doctrine of first strike.

As someone who could freely manipulate Negative Energy without immediate consequences to his constitution, he had several choices for an opening volley that would ensure a continuous advantage.

While in the PLA, he had always been taught that Necromancy was a path to many dark and unorthodox powers. Now, as the supposed heir to Sobel's Necromancy and the culmination of Henry Kilroy's research, he excercised those unnatural powers freely.

If there were fresh corpses, his personal choice of an opening volley was the vapour variant of Corpse Explosion, a spell that mimicked the infamous Cloud Kill, only it used the bodies of the fallen as a catalyst.

In the absence of corpses, his usual opening was something called Bone Lance, which could exchange its catalyst of bodies with his crystalline Salt Element, producing piercing, barbed spines that could then be manipulated and paired with other spells.

Unfortunately, Percy did not manage his first strike, and this he blamed upon his sister's psychic interference.

With materialised hatred, the Knight named Mathias came on as a sudden squall, refusing to relent until Percy was bisected or crushed. The first swing, something between Smite, Banishment or both, cracked Percy's Salt Shell barrier like an egg, sending twin streams of howling mana into a V-shaped cloud of dust behind him as Percy's Reactive Shell kicked in, parrying the blade.

The follow-up swing caught nought but air, for Percy had already mastered Blink to a degree where instantaneous, silent multi-casts barely strained his mental capabilities.

Conversely, his spell riposte took longer, for the Investiture of Salt built into his Salt Skin, when paired with the Song's necrotic Drain Life, took both calculation and immense willpower to manifest.

The Knight followed with a backhand swing, twisting his body with impossible agility so that the man became a golden blur of sharp edges.

Percy's salt tendrils hammered at the approaching blade, himself sending a dozen strands of salt to snare his victim.

Within seconds, their third exchange was over. The Knight's blade bit dust once more, scorching the ground and turning sand to glass. Meanwhile, his salt strands wrapped themselves around the Knight's wrist and arms, digging through the cracks in the roughly repaired plate mail.

"Ha–!" Percy, his mind momentarily purged of his sister's presence, prepared for the arrival of his foe's vitality.

Instead, a sword met his face half-way, nearly splitting his nose as they grazed past the Salt Skin, triggering his reactive armour once more. Using both tendril and his armoured limbs, Percy parried thrust after thrust, feeling himself being pushed back as his mana levels fell.

"Fucking Death Ward…" Percy cursed, suspecting that this was the reason the Knight was immune to his Necromancy. "Circle of Salt!"

Despite the obvious nomenclature, his Circle of Salt wasn't the warding spell used by the demon-hunting predecessors of his Clan, but a variation of Circle of Death modified to affect moisture a la Horrid Wilting.

Mathias could heal, and the Knights were immune to Negative Drain; however, there was no way they were immune to dessication.

Almost instantly, strands of moisture began to leak out from between the gaps in the armour, and the Knight's speed slowed—but not before the Knight of St Michael raised his golden relic suspended from his chest and expended the stowed Faith inside. Percy felt he could have disrupted the act, but he felt more confident that his Master's magic was far more powerful than whatever miracle a Knight Major could manifest.

"Desiccate!" He switched to the upper-middle tier Transmutations that the PLA had taught him, which he had previously been unable to exercise. With his present level of Affinity and the blessing of the Black Dragon, however, such spells came to him as easily as a Fire Mage's Flaming Balls.

The strands of salt holding the Knight quickly turned to crystalline chains, then roped around Mathias' limbs like the beginning of a giant cocoon.

After his golden glow-up, Percy noted that the leeching of Mathias' body fluids had significantly reduced. That was always the trouble with Faith casters. Together with early Necromancers and their obsession with immortality, Faith was a School of Magic that fundamentally altered what Sobel termed causality. Causality was the very reason why Ayxin's Dragon-child could come to be, and why Quar-Tath could create a world-within-a-dream such as Che'ell-Cressen.

From its very inception ten millennia ago, Faith Magic was anathema to the likes of the Svartálfar, who saw the rise of Human civilisation as a challenge to their natural dominion as the guardians of the Prime Material, or at least their corner of it. To appease the Elves, Sobel had told Percy that Henry Kilroy's Clan, the Mordens of Suilven, had made a deal with the "Devil" to hybridise Elven Elemental Magic so that Humanity would move away from the temptations of Faith and its diptych twin schools—Biomancy and Necromancy.

This turn in the history of Humanity had catalysed the Industrial Age, but also removed Humanity from the principal source of power that had allowed their earliest erudites to beat back the Magical Beasts, construct their cities and cross the oceans.

That his Necromancy-wielding self was now fighting a Faith caster, and that they both operated hybridised Imperial Magic systems, was a duality that Percy was sure his Master enjoyed.

Salt and Radiance clashed once more.

Each time Percy tried to make space between them, the Knight closed it, clearing the space of a dozen meters with a single Leap that made it look as though Mathias was Blinking in conjunction with Percy's own.

Another scrap, another near miss.

But Percy felt through his Soul Well that his spell was taking effect, even if the efficacy of his Negative Energy drain was near-zero, and the desiccation was reduced to a minimum. Swearing internally, he Blinked twice in succession, moving skyward this time to bait the Knight into leaping upward.

Instead, at the apex of his transformation, an ear-ringing eruption of "Radiant Smite" caught him where he reappeared, sending Percy into a momentary daze.

Percy's cheeks flush with embarrassment.

A lesser Mage.

A Rogue Arcanist.

Or a heretical caster would have been made unable to invoke another spell, paralysed by the mixture of Positive Energy and tinnitus. An Undead being, such as a Vampire, would have half-dissolved into dust.

But not him. He was a Favoured Fang. He knew perfectly well that his sister was up on the Silent Spire, watching with her hypercritical eyes, waiting for an opportunity to demean and belittle him. Within his Soul Well, the Essence borrowed from Ancient Quar-Tath, fortified by indignity, took to his conduits like a Dwarf to Fire Water, igniting his veins.

With a fount of willpower, Percy tore free from the Faith Magic's sundering to behold the Knight below. In that moment, he exuded the inherent tyranny of a higher being regarding the likeness of a mite.

A spell, taught from luscious lips to trembling tongue by Sobel, came to his mind as the Knight below launched two more attacks, each a Radiant Bloom of solidified heat empowered by Faith, greedily seeking the Negative energy he held within his conduits.

"Merkrandi Wheda!" Percy's tonsil nearly tore itself off the root trying to shape the Draconic. It was inexpert, but the owner of the Essence in his veins must have been amused, for the spell manifested with neither an overt drain on his mana nor his sanity.

In an instant, darkness cascaded over the Knight, swallowing the Radiance.

Like a living waterfall of ink it was, manifesting as a localised eclipse, visible only because the lumen glows from the arena's crystals and the Knight seemed unable to penetrate its flippant expansion, a moving mass without mass itself.

This was the unmatched power of an Ancient Black's blessing, a control of Negative Energy so precise, so primordial, that it predates Faith Magic by geological stratum.

Here was the darkness that the earliest ancestors of men feared. Here was the darkness that made man light the first fire. A depthless dark of the mind and soul, too potent for mortal wisdom to ignore, too primal for modern man's psyche to resist.

As Mathias became swallowed, there should have been a scuffle.

A scream.

A cry.

A choke.

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But caught in the folds of Quar-Tath's darkness, there was no sound, no smell, no sight or sensation. When training, Percy had himself been swallowed by the blessing dozens of times, surviving only because white fingers reached into that darkness to pull him out by the wrist, their tips cool, harsh, yet motherly.

Percy counted to ten.

Ten was his limit.

At seven, his Soul Well stirred with vitality.

While his Draconic manifestation muted the existence of Spellcraft and Faith Magic used by the Knight, it was intelligent enough to leave the necrotic mana of its caster unmolested. With his Armour of Faith and Death Ward dampened, Mathias could no longer resist the invasion of Percy's salt-tendrils.

Naturally, the Knight persisted.

With all his might, Percy circulated his spell at the highest possible tier of efficacy.

Around them, the darkness fell away, inciting audible cries of jubilance and immense applause from the Dark Elves watching the area. Below him, the Knight was on his knees, disoriented and strangled, half-lifted into the air by chains of salt into a spontaneous crucifixion.

There was no blood.

No overt, visible signs of violence.

Only the invisible transfer of vitality, and the silken strands of moisture leaking from every gap in Mathias' armour as the man hung from semi-transparent strands of salt like a slab of meat the Song manor's cook left out to dry-age.

Triumphant, Percy raised his head to regard his observers.

The moment the Knight dies… There would be no return. Blink, Dimension Door, Slide, Percy would utilise every means possible to flee into Sobel's arms before his sister could teleport into the arena and accost him.

But until the bout ended, there was nothing Gwen could do.

Here in the belly of Che'ell-Cressen, the spatial rules of Vlos Vthath

were inviolable. Not Qila, not Phyr, no existence other than Quar-Tath herself could bend its laws. In his three years of endless pit-fighting, he had seen Dark Elves rage against the invisible dome, creatures desperately fleeing via flight, only to find themselves inexplicably disintegrated. There was even a Draconic Shrew that tried to pierce the floor, only to be shunted into pocket spaces that only Quar-tath would know.

Far to his right, he saw his Master's affable smile, so heartachingly beautiful because he could tell without doubt that she was enjoying his victory, that she was proud of what he had accomplished.

Further to his left was his sister, her hands against the rails as though she would make a leap, her body frozen in impotent fury.

How similar they looked, Percy noted for the first time. Their svelte silhouettes, elegant and imposing, their pale complexion harshly imposed against their cascading hair and dark dresses.

Taking a little more altitude. He looked straight ahead.

The Cleric was there, on the balcony overlooking the arena, shouting at the Mistress of the Suffocating Dark. She was begging. She was on her knees.

The instant pleasure and gratification that filled Percy's veins was distilled Draconic Essence, firing off every neurotransmitter node capable of receiving the tidal rush of endorphins soaking his brain. Together with the vitality filling his Soul Well, he was walking on air, feeling himself rising to a higher plane.

Percy's love for his Master swelled in tandem with the sweet sadism of his serenading heart. Elizabeth had promised that if he won, he would receive satisfaction beyond his wildest dreams, and now he was the beneficiary of that self-fulfilling prophecy.

"PERCY—FUCKING—SONG—!" A rippling thunderclap tore through the arena's sky. "STOP THAT SHIT NOW!"

To Percy's horror, he almost cancelled his spell.

As his head rose to regard the hovering spectacle of the woman whose choice of fashion barely hid her scandalous limbs, his body recalled the hugs, the kisses, the embrace. He recalled the chilli eggs he scrambled, his steadfast sister in the aftermath of Sydney. He saw his family, his grandfather and grandmother, their eyes wide with hope, in that family portrait by the courtyard, with Guo fuming over Peaches while Gwen stood beside him, smelling of flowers.

A split-second later, his sentimentality gave way to reality.

He looked up at his sister defiantly, knowing that she could not cross the non-existent barrier formed by the laws of their Pocket Plane until either he or Mathias died. If his sister was as talented in Divination as Sobel, her spine must be twisting itself into a knot with every inch she gained.

There she was.

Tall as always.

Beautiful and domineering.

Arrogant, guileless, privileged, expecting the world to fold into her hands like an obedient origami crane, then laugh and boast that she had it all planned.

Percy… raised a hand in invitation.

Like a puppet on strings, Mathias rose into the air as well, already too weak to struggle. The Knight was panting for air, for moisture, for it took only a mild case of dehydration for a mortal to perish from an induced heatstroke.

Gwen, his dear sister, stared.

Her prideful irises were twin orbs of emerald fire.

Stark.

Striking.

And most importantly, impotently enraged.

Her face was beet-red, her hair and skin crackled with Elemental Lightning, fraying her dress.

The white of her eyes, still burning bright, was turning dark with the Void Mana pervading her conduits.

Was there ever a woman so scorned by her brother?

This was the Gwen he wanted to see. The beautifully demure older sister. The girl who cried next door at night. The girl who starved for days to fit into a new dress. The girl whose hands had trembled so much whenever Helena scolded her for her inattention to her waist.

"Ah, Gwennie… now there's the sister I know and love," Percy found himself comfortably numb with happiness, the great mystery of his wayward life all solved and resolved.

He truly loved his sister.

His real sister. Not the imposter.

With great ceremony, he raised his hand again, upping the tension and the Life Drain. The arena was by now wholly silent, for rarely had the Dark Elves seen such a spectacle, and they were imbibing the tragedy like reserved Shiraz, regretful only that the end was nigh.

"Percy, let the wretch go." The Message that bloomed by his ear was a line of sight communication from none other than his beloved Master. "Mistress Phyr has reached an agreement with Mistress Qila, and so have I. Well done, dearest. I hope the satisfaction was to your liking."

Without hesitation, Percy allowed his victim to hit the ground. As a courtesy, he even returned a portion of the Life Drain so that the man was guaranteed to be healable—assuming the Ordo had the means of restoring a cripple with fully withered mana conduits.

As he made his exit, he half-expected Gwen to teleport beside him with a Black Sword in hand, ready to shove it up his rectum—but he had his satisfaction now, and if death was the price he must pay, then it was well worth it.

But death, nor Gwen, had come.

For above him, watched by the Seven Spires and their mirthful Mistresses, the Void Witch of the past was now vis-à-vis with the Void Witch of tomorrow.

Gwen knew she wasn't in her right state of mind.

And she knew more so that even if she was, there was no fighting Sobel.

A woman who had mastered spells like the Black Blade some two decades before she had even accessed the spell, taught by the same instructors from Suilven and survived four decades against the Mageocracy wasn't someone she could duel to death. That honour would fall to her Brother-in-Craft, while she would be the reason Elizabeth Sobel was bereft of every tether to the Prime Material and beyond.

Her final hunt for Sobel could be a matter of milling the Void Witch down to a fine, particled, powdered form.

She would eviscerate Sobel's allies until Sobel was alone and destitute.

She would purge her every hearth and home, and burn every place of rest.

No matter where Sobel sought to hide. Her matchess Tower would hunt her down and slay every creature that tried to defend Sobel from Gunther's vengeful light.

But not today.

Not with Evee on her knees, supplicating to her Svartálfar hostess like a whipped orphan at a nunnery.

Not with her Golden Essence gushing through the slits between her eyes, while her sinus burned like wildfire, even though, certainly, she couldn't be crying.

Who would shed tears for a brother like that?

Only a fool.

A stupid, deceived, naive fool.

Percy.

Fucking Percy.

That look.

That stare.

That subtle tilt of the corner of his mouth.

That expression of ecstasy, like a little junkie getting his fix after going cold turkey.

That was no Mind Magic, not Suggestion, not Dominate.

That was the true face of Percy Song, only between her Black Blade and her brother's ass was a Void Witch she could not fight, nor fight meaningfully even if she tried.

"You're so pitifully pretty when you're like that," the voice of Elizabeth Sobel observed with a warmth that made her skin crawl. "Did you know that Henry loved me the most when I fell into my moods? Whenever I became a flood of tears, he was thrilled. He would take me, before my eyes had even dried…"

Gwen felt her body stiffen. Whatever moisture of abject disappointment that had escaped her face instantly evaporated with her sudden revulsion, making gooseflesh of every pore on her body. With as much subtlety as she could muster, she took a deep breath, then confronted the blue-eyed witch hovering only a few feet away.

Sobel.

Her Master's Lilybird.

Elizabeth looked no older than her twentieth summer, with slightly damp hair that fell softly against her bare shoulders, a complexion as pale as pasteurised milk, and baby blue eyes that slowly turned a limitless ultramarine.

"I know what your ilk is doing here," Gwen opened with hostility because, despite her rich library of insults and witty repartees, she honestly knew nothing that would make the woman flinch. "And now that I am here, there's no hope for your ploys. Just like everywhere else, I'll thwart you, purge the Sinneslukare and chase Spectre out of town."

The ex-wife of her Master did not seem to care.

Instead, she leaned closer, her natural lashes so imposing that Gwen had to lean back.

"You think you know everything, don't you, kitten?" The woman interrogated her with the expression of a Korean mother-in-law finding dust on the mantlepiece. "After all, you are the Regent of Shalkar, the prophetess of profits, whom the Mageocracy wields like a jewel-encrusted mace."

"All the better to crush you with," Gwen retorted, only to cringe at her dulled wit. "I see you've done well with my brother. He's learned far more from you than his PLA instructors."

Sobel smiled, red lips parting to reveal ivory teeth.

"I have grown fond of him," Sobel said without a smidgen of shame or sardonicism. "He is a rare talent. His feelings for you fuel his lessons to degrees you cannot begin to imagine. The love I once felt for Henry… I am ashamed to say that if I had even half of what Percy feels for you, this—all of this—would have happened differently."

Gwen snorted dismissively, for the alternative was too much pain, much too soon.

Sobel tilted her head, allowing her bangs to cover one eye, giving her face an inquisitive quality.

"You don't believe me, kitten?" Sobel almost looked sad. "What don't you believe? Percy's depthless longing for your love? Or that I did love Henry? Would you like a hug?"

"You're such…" Gwen found herself studying the woman once more, though Sobel was an impossible book to fathom. "You're such a creature."

"Hahaha…" her existential foil laughed with giddy delight, her whole body shaking. "We're all someone's creature, kitten. Isn't that why you're here? Isn't that why I am here? How else would a pair of creatures like us meet in Che'ell-Cressen? Are you upset that I've made a more magnificent creature out of your brother than you? Certainly, he shines FAR brighter than that mewling squib you've raised over yonder. What a waste of resources. I would have chosen Percy."

"Evee is not… She's…" Gwen stopped herself before she could reach out to give Sobel's inviting face a slap that would snap her neck. The demoness wasn't attacking, and so she couldn't either. In this place, in Che'ell-Cressen, even she knew there were consequences to breaking the unspoken rules of the Spire City, especially if they were metaphysically inside Quar-Tath, cosmologically speaking. Indeed, when she had leapt from the Silent Spire, her Divination had gripped her spine and made a pretty pretzel before she resorted to shouting at Percy.

"A word of advice. I would consult soon with sister Qila, if you've yet to abandon your pet," Sobel shrugged, the spaghetti string of her casual gown loosening to reveal an elegant collarbone. "Che'ell-Cressen is no place to be making deals, not for a lamb like her. Oh, and while you're cleaning up here, I shall take Percy with me, and we shall foster our relationship as Master and Apprentice, a dynamic—well… maybe not that, hahaha…"

Gwen felt her facial muscles twitch, but couldn't help but glance at the Spire where Elvia now knelt beside the Dark Elf dubbed as the Mistress of the Suffocating Dark. It took no stretch of the imagination to know that Mathias should have died, and yet he was spared. For that to happen, there had to be a cost.

Ergo, who paid whom? Who paid with what? And what would the recipient receive?

For some reason, her opponent's face softened. "I do envy you, Gwen. You've outgrown my husband's most imaginative designs. Be it Gunther or Alesia, or yours truly, Henry never did allow his pretties to fly the coup. For that, you have my respect. I can understand why you hate me, but I've never reciprocated those feelings. Intead, I feel fondness."

Sobel extended an arm.

Gwen stared at the white hand as though it would grow tentacles and a beak.

"Take my hand," Sobel's silent Message passed between them. "No need to show these Svartálfar that we're completely at odds. If you want your creature back, don't let the bastards wear you down. They believe that they are the Mistresses of the Prime Material, that they are beyond the young races' means to challenge—but they are wrong. So wrong. Stagnant and wrong. I taught them that, and so will you."

Perhaps it was because she felt the gaze of the Svartálfar burning the nape of her neck, or maybe it was because of her unbidden thoughts of Elvia, but Gwen found herself clasping the hand of her nemesis.

The two shook, barely, their hands separating as quickly as they touched, like the fleeting kiss of young lovers stricken by unwanted feelings.

When they separated, Sobel hid her hand, just as Gwen hid hers.

"Guard Che'ell-Cressen well, creature of The Accord," the Void Witch recovered before she did. "In the meantime, as Henry raised you to vex me, I shall raise sweet Percy to be no less vexatious."

Pinching the air with an elegant finger, Sobel unzipped the fabric of the Prime Material like the back of a fitted dress, tearing just enough space to fit snugly. With a final, affirming nod to their next meeting, the murderer of her Master slipped into the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Void, her next destination unknowable to the troubled mind of the Regent of Shalkar.

Gwen's eyes turned downwards to where Percy should have stood, waiting for his new "Master", only to find a newly transmuted arena and no sign of the traitorous hellion.

Instead, she saw Elvia and another Knight, their bodies bent over the comatose figure of Mathias, Sen-sen and Kiki fervently pumping liquid vitality and Essence back into the dessicated husk of a man that remained after her brother was thoroughly done with him.

"Regent, is your meeting concluded?" The voice of Vetra, her host, sounded beside her ear.

"It's finished." Gwen felt every muscle in her body ache as the tension drained from her body. A flash of Almudj's Essence later, she was once more spry, though the same could not be said of her threadbare psyche. "Can I go down into the arena now?"

"The bout is concluded, so you may wander as you please," the voice grew oddly excited as it delivered her options. "Though I must inform you that there are now complications to your desired ownership of the Yinglong's Vessel, for your beloved creature is now the Favoured Fang of Phyr Quar-tath, Mistress of the Long Night."