An echo of the Shattered Oracle.

If anything could give Vivi genuine pause, that was certainly it. That she eclipsed him in power, she felt certain of; she was not weaker than the existence in front of her. But raw power was hardly the only factor. Here was a genius among mages willing to break any rule, no matter how sacred—and would indeed do so with exultation.

At least it didn’t seem to be the Oracle himself. Not truly. It was an echo of the concept he represented, and the precise form it had taken was that of Remian Voss, the man behind the Cataclysm.

Nevertheless, besides Vivi herself, the Shattered Oracle was the most talented mage to ever exist. The Umbral Regent had been a full hundred levels lower than he, and at those highest echelons, that was a much larger gap than it might seem.

“What are you doing here?” Vivi asked cautiously. She hadn’t expected this; she wasn’t sure how to handle his presence. Especially since he didn’t seem hostile.

Remian smiled. His eyes crinkled and his lips pulled upward, an earnestly friendly expression. “Forgive the cryptic answer, if you may, but in no roundabout sense, I’m here for the same reason you are.”

He stepped forward, and Vivi reacted instinctively; she pulled back, tugging Isabella with her. The young man paused in surprise, eyes flicking to the girl at her side, and an almost distraught expression flashed across his face.

“Please, Vivisari,” he said sadly, much of his cheer draining. “It’s not unreasonable for you to be suspicious. But I don’t want to harm you, much less a child. Even in the height of my madness, hurting was never my goal. There is no need to treat me as a killer.”

“I can tell what you’ve organized,” she said bluntly. “The purpose of this ritual. Even if you aren’t him, you aren’t innocent.”

He spread his hands. “Nevertheless, bringing harm is not my goal. Truly. If tragedies occur in the course of fulfilling that greatest purpose, of understanding the deepest mysteries of our world and beyond?” He searched Vivi’s face, clearly thinking his words sensible beyond reproach. The confidence dwindled when he saw that Vivi obviously didn’t agree. “Oh.” His hands dropped to his sides.

He took a breath and tried again. “Surely you understand, Vivisari,” he insisted. “I know I’m not alone. I know you see what I do, feel what I do. That ecstasy, when you embrace your potential.” He lifted both hands in front of him to mime grasping some object. “Holding reality’s beating heart within your hands.” He squeezed. “Witnessing that vital organ burst. A will exerted, reality unmade.” A soft sigh escaped him. “There is nothing greater.” His shoulders sagged. “It’s in our nature—the nature of all mages. You cannot convince me otherwise. You will succumb, as I did, so why stand there and treat me like a monster?”

A long silence filled the air as she considered him. The words disturbed her. “You’re…right,” she said slowly. “I can’t say I don’t understand. But I condone nothing. Your greatest purpose isn’t mine.”

He scrutinized her, as if trying to decide if she was lying—or maybe if she was delusional. Eventually, the echo of a broken man shook himself, and some of his cheer returned. “Ah, we already digress. Our purposes are aligned, in part, so let us focus there before we must clash once more.”

At the reminder, her eyes drifted to the mana currents and glowing runes littering the town square. Even if she tried, she didn’t think she could stop Remian, not with the ritual already active, the groundwork laid, and the strength and talent of the mage in question.

Perhaps she could, but…she wasn’t sure she wanted to. The ritual might solve several problems of hers, as conflicted as she was about letting a madman cast magic on this scale.

The less complicated discussions first. Because she sensed earnestness in Remian’s words. He wanted to help, somehow.

“Aligned how?” Vivi asked. Obviously, she didn’t intend to place much trust in this man—this echo of a Concept—but a conversation wouldn’t hurt. The ritual’s fervency had slowed; he wasn’t actively continuing it while they spoke. She was pretty sure it was a metaphorical twitch of his wrist from activation anyway. This was no delaying tactic.

“You know how. I respect my killer too much to spell out an obvious truth.”

Vivi was silent for a moment. “Our world, against the void.”

He clapped his hands. “Yes. The forces that come with naught but hunger in their heart—that infinite, devouring darkness. Our true enemy, no matter the differences we hold. Even an insect from our world would throw itself upon those beasts, gnashing and biting, without reservation. They are anathema.” His voice took on a curious lilt. “So I wish to help you, our champion among the living. A relief, isn’t it, to have such a uniting opponent?”

“I suppose it is,” Vivi said carefully.

Despite calling himself an echo—and the fact that he definitely was—he clearly held power in some tangible manner. The ritual was proof of that.

In a way, this was more unnerving than dealing with the real Shattered Oracle. This man sounded too sensible for a person who symbolized the epitome of madness. Especially when what he had said earlier showed that his mindset hadn’t changed.

“Your apprehension is plain. No doubt thanks to my work.” He swept a hand out at their surroundings. “I insist that you set that aside, briefly. You could benefit from what I have to say. Our world could.”

“I think our world will not benefit from what you have planned,” Vivi said pointedly. Though she was maybe being hypocritical, seeing how she’d acknowledged that she might want the ritual to succeed for her own purposes.

The sheepish look was almost endearing, and the natural affability of the boy made Vivi uneasy. “Please. That is that, and this is this.”

After a moment, she nodded. Not because she was looking past what he had planned—and what he had done in the past—but because there was sensibility in accepting aid where offered.

“Excellent! Tell me, then, Vivisari. What have you deduced about the nature of our enemies, and this realm?”

She mulled over her response. “The void creatures are natives, and they’re highly resistant to magic—foreign energy—of all types. Likely because ours isn’t the only world they’ve invaded. This realm”—she gestured around—”is the murky blackness between worlds, a liminal or transitional zone. The only reason we see anything at all is because we’re so close. All of this is…existence imprinted onto non-existence. Like shadows behind a curtain.”

“Well described,” Remian said with a smile. “I do not disagree. But the creatures themselves. How do they feed and grow?”

“I wondered that myself, but questioned whether applying logic made sense.”

“Fair,” the man conceded. “But there are lesser voidlings and greater ones; weaker voidbeasts and greater. Perhaps they coalesce in forms of varying strength, whole from birth, but I think you would agree that this conclusion feels wrong. They evolve somehow.”

“By eating.”

“The natural assumption. But consuming what? Sustenance is rather lacking in this membrane, if you haven’t noticed. No. All that exists here”—he spread his arms proudly—”are the long spines of a prickly pear fruit, guarding the succulent flesh one thin boundary away.”

The Concepts such as himself, he meant. “In reality, then.”

“But that would require a dimensional breach,” he protested. “Such pitiful creatures cannot break through themselves; they are far too weak, even the strongest, to meddle with those primordial forces.”

What conclusion was she being led to? Her eyes narrowed.

“Something stronger, then, would lead them. Break through. So they could feed.” She looked up at the sky—at the half-shattering above. Her very first thought on seeing the Shattered Oracle’s echo had been that somehow the man himself had been responsible. But no. That wasn’t right, was it? “A vanguard, to punch through,” she murmured. Her eyes fell back onto the boy, then turned to the cover laid atop a lumpy object. “What’s underneath the blanket, Remian?”

The man’s smile twisted into something wolflike. “I do love speaking with the intelligent. Indeed, that is the crux of what I wished to share with you, before we must again be at odds. The aid given from one tasty morsel to another, to stand against the starving Other.”

He walked over, grabbed the blanket, and threw it off.

Vivi had strongly suspected what lay beneath, but she still grimaced at the reveal.

A corpse. A roughly humanoid one, seven feet tall, and plated in violet-and-black glasslike material. No eyes, no mouth, no ears. Smooth all around, as if he was wearing a sleek armored helmet. The lack of humanizing features relieved her…but it still had two legs and two arms, which made her skin crawl.

Inspecting the creature doubled that unease.

***

Inspection failed. Approximation provided.

***

***

Deceased [Voidgod Anaxtharras]

Not lootable.

***

Remian had no such conflict on his features. Mocking disdain shone in his eyes. “A devourer of worlds, laid low by a mere echo of a mage. It inspires a certain patriotic pride,” he laughed. “Does it not? This prickly pear of a world has longer spines than most. Attempt to consume us at your peril.” He spat to the side, an uncharacteristic action, but the only way to make his disgust clear.

A moment passed, then he bent down and, with a flicker of magic, severed one of its arms at the elbow. He handed it to her.

“A gift,” he said, winking. “Something to study, and further aid you in preserving our world. I’m afraid I will need the rest for what I have planned today.”

Vivi took the limb cautiously. She guessed she had an answer for what the ritual’s primary sacrifice was, and it made a startling amount of sense. The original perpetrator of an attempted boundary-smashing, used to fuel the next.

Though unnerved, she couldn’t help but share Remian’s mean satisfaction from earlier. It did evoke a certain pride, that even their world’s natural defenses—echoes of ingrained Concepts—had fended off a creature the System labeled a ‘voidgod’.

For that monster to have grown so strong, it must have glutted itself on unimaginable quantities of power. This creature had come with full intent to devour every ounce of magic, every living creature in their world. So she couldn’t be upset by its death. Even if she wasn’t happy, either, that the life of a possibly sapient being had ended.

“Are they intelligent?” she asked.

“We fought, not spoke.”

“It has a name.”

“It does.”

“Did the System give a level?”

He smiled. “Approximate, yes. Two thousand and six. It seems you are not alone in breaking through that esteemed summit, my lady.”

He knew her level? Or just an estimate?

More importantly: “How did you kill it?” The Shattered Oracle had been weaker than the Ashen Hierophant, which—by raw level, at least—had been weaker than he.

“I am not a singular broken man,” Remian Voss said dismissively. “I am all of them. All who dared to look beyond the veil, with nary a worry how their mind would crumple under the truth.” He winked. “Though I boast somewhat. It was difficult, putting that thing down. I won’t deny it.”

She mulled over his responses.

“Why now?”

Remian clapped his hands. “Delightful! Again, the exact question I wanted! Why, now, has the Void come for us? I think, as before, you already know the answer.”

Her stomach sank. “I don’t.”

“Lying to oneself is never an admirable quality,” he tutted. “It is how I was born.” He stroked his chin, then chose to explain. “This grand expanse that our world floats in, alone for many, many leagues. It is a dark forest, with hungry predators in all its hollow crevices. To burn too brightly in the night is to draw eyes from afar. For many millennia, none shone with true radiance.” His eyes were appraising as he waited to see how she would react.

“You mean me.”

“Indeed,” Remian said calmly. “The all-knowing, or near enough, gaze of the Grand System falls upon a creature it acknowledges as a god of the void, and deems it far your inferior. I must ask, Vivisari, what have you done to attain such strength? Even I am baffled.”

Vivi met his gaze evenly, though her thoughts churned.

Remian studied her for a moment, then shrugged at the lack of response. “That is it, I’m afraid. I have shared what I wanted to, in the manner of allies we are. It is time to commence.”

She set aside all of the unnerving revelations. “You intend to rip open the dimensional fabric.”

“Yes.” Despite how this echo of Remian Voss lacked the plain madness of the Shattered Oracle, he didn’t sound repentant or regretful in the slightest. Preternaturally keen, he pointed out, amused, “You need me to. You cannot stay trapped here; a hole must be created, one way or another. Better I than you, no?” Almost teasingly, he said, “It is for the best that another does not set down my path, meddling with the unknowable. Especially you, Vivisari. You would not take madness well. It is an acquired taste. Few enjoy seeing with eyes wide open.”

That summed up her thoughts concisely, yes. She didn’t want to dirty her hands with magic that esoteric, on that scale, without significantly more study. She was reckless at times, yes, but not a madwoman.

Even more importantly, Remian’s breaking a way open allowed her to save her strength for dealing with the fallout—fallout which she doubted could be prevented, even if she were the one leading the magic.

“I would at least look for another way. A more elegant one.” Which was why she wasn’t pleased by this development. It was happening too fast. It might not be necessary to be so…crude with her methods.

“Nevertheless, I proceed.”

“You call us allies, but plan to finish what that creature started?” She gestured at the corpse of the…the voidgod.

“It’s no contradiction, Vivisari. My nature is simple and unyielding. I am a monster for what I have done in pursuit of that vice, but the sin itself—it is no true sin. I know what I came into existence for. I pity you, and all others, for not experiencing that bliss in purity of purpose.”

Delicately, his hands went out in front of him, fingers curling around an imaginary rod. Maybe because of the raw intent in the action, Vivi’s thoughts flashed to that metaphor he had used earlier. That of squeezing a beating heart—Reality’s—within his fists until it burst. She understood instantly what he was mimicking.

The Shattered Oracle held a delicate pillar of vertebrae in his grip, that most crucial portion of the skeleton. His gaze drifted upward, to the center of the almost-healed anomaly. His grip tightened. He took a long breath in, and, with great reverence, he mumbled:

“Above all else, Vivisari, I must know what happens. Witness it with my own two eyes. An oracle is born to see.”

With a jerk, he snapped the spine over his knee.

The ritual flared.

And the boundary between worlds shattered for a second time.