Unholy Player

"This is insane." Praise slipped from the watching mouths as Brakhtar worked like a painter, blending every color with absolute focus and control.

He was not only guiding his own skills to construct this furnace; he was also steering the hundreds of skills the other Practitioners had poured in. Like an alchemist at the crucible, he used them all, breeding and creating a new skill from their mix.

Seconds stretched into minutes. Around them, the void seemed to harden, pressure turning the emptiness to something like glass, and they were already moving through an invisible passage toward a new dimension, a prison that would hold them all.

Yet even then, no one showed strain or panic. Every gaze held to the 2-headed ogre, faces lit with a terrible fascination as he worked.

When the clusters inside the sapphire finally condensed and fused, the result revealed itself to all.

"A transparent liquid?"

Surprise rippled through the Practitioners. Moments ago, the energy had been a riot of colors; now it was whole, clarified into something like clear water filling the sapphire sphere.

At that sight, understanding struck them; every eye widened and every face turned grim. Even Brakhtar, who had wrought it, stared straight at the product, studying it as if it were a curse, a forbidden art made visible.

"So this is what happens when all Paths meet at the crossroads," he said, voice low and grim. He bowed both heads at once; for the first time, fear edged his tone. "Forgive me. I seek Your mercy and understanding." There was no audience to answer, only an unseen presence to receive the plea.

No one found his behavior strange. They, too, lowered their heads a fraction, a subtle fear shining in their eyes.

Thalira showed the strongest reaction. She could not bear to look at the final product; her gaze slid down to her feet and stayed there. Her expression tightened. She bit her lip until it split, and a thin thread of blood drew a dark line down from her chin.

For a while, no one spoke; only silence reigned around them. Finally, Brakhtar broke it.

"I hope it's worth it." Then the sapphire container began to web with small cracks and, with a single heavy break, shattered and released the transparent liquid inside.

The liquid spilled freely at once and drifted outward, floating in the void without any pull of gravity. There was no flash, no shockwave, no visible burst of power. It simply hung there, free.

But this was expected. Though it was a construct Brakhtar had constructed from hundreds of skills, he had not been completely successful. What he created was not exactly a skill, and it had none of the properties a true skill would have. It was only a raw material, a base substrate, an arcane reagent.

Even so, it was enough, because what he needed was not attack power itself; its presence alone would suffice.

And that presence soon began to show itself.

After drifting for a time, the transparent liquid started to vibrate. As it vibrated, it began to evaporate, and with that evaporation, an indescribable presence settled over them.

The feeling hit everyone at once, the same weight they felt from Titled Practitioners when they used their Rank 4 Spark skills.

Even though there was still no sign anywhere that a skill was being used, what Brakhtar had made was only an imitation of one, and he had imitated the pressure of a Rank 4 skill perfectly.

"Do you think it will be enough?" Thalira seemed to come back to herself, shedding her earlier grimness, and asked with a strained voice.

He had told them they needed a strong attack, but now what he showed was only something like a preview of an attack that was never promised to arrive.

"We will see," Brakhtar answered, looking around and trying to catch any change.

He had already done the best he could. Now he looked completely drained, his body shaking with fatigue.

Thankfully, as if their prayers were answered, a loud sound rang in everyone's ears, like an overstretched rubber band snapping.

SNAP. A dry, whip-crack report that cut through the void.

"What is this sound?" Loudbark flinched and looked around, trying to find its source. Then another one sounded.

SNAP.

SNAP.

…

The sounds kept coming. At the same time, the void around them began to tremble, as if the strings holding it together were popping one by one.

"It is working. The passage is collapsing," Brakhtar said, relief slipping from both his mouths.

Then, with the last and loudest snap, the pressure that had thickened around them, and all the chaotic shears and distortions, vanished before their eyes. They found themselves once more in the ordinary emptiness of the void.

"It worked? Are we back?" Relief rushed into Maruun as he looked around. When he realized he could again see the distant floating islets, and the floating book still there, excitement rose with the certainty that they had escaped.

Nonetheless, the relief did not last long. Those were not the only things that had returned when the dimensional passage broke.

The massive serpent body of the Rank 4 Spark was also there, not far from them.

"Oh, come on…" Loudbark, as if exhausted and hollowed out, stared at the creature. It was watching them keenly and hissing like a predator looking at its prey.

"Are we ready for round 2, or does anyone have another plan?" Maruun asked, looking around.

All he could see on their faces was despair and grim resolve, the kind that stiffens the jaw and hollows the eyes.

He looked to Brakhtar and Thalira, the two powers they needed most to fight, and when he saw how drained they were, as if they could not fight anymore, his heart dropped like a stone. Brakhtar's shoulders sagged, both heads dragging uneven breaths. Thalira's hair, once crackling with charge, lay heavy and dull, her fingers tightening on the rapier only to steady a tremor.

He turned his gaze to his kin, the other Aqualeth, and gave a silent nod, sending his intent without words. Gills fluttered in answer. Hands shifted on weapons. A shared understanding crossed the water-born like a ripple: move light, split wide, vanish if you can.

The only thing left was to scatter and run, to pray they would not be the Serpent's target, and to snatch whatever time they could while it was busy taking other lives. It was a plan made of thin hope, but hope was all that remained.

Even that plan was doomed.

In the next second, when their eyes cut to where the Serpent had been, the space was empty, as if a great weight had been lifted off the fabric of the void and left a clean, cold dent behind.

Then the same sensations and shifts from before began to ripple around them again. The air seemed to thicken. Hair prickled. A low, almost inaudible hum pressed on the teeth and the inner ear. The black around them bent like heat above stone, seams of space drawing tight.

"You gotta be kidding me." The words came out flat, a dry scrape against the rising pressure.