I twisted frantically, dodging the lance of gray energy by only a hair’s width. It disappeared behind me with a speed that made me shudder. That was entirely too close.

Talia’s shield fended off the worst of the shadow gale, protecting us from the lethal, face-melting effect the eldritch magic might have had. But it did nothing for the windstorm of pressure that swirled around us, continuing to build.

My summon pressed forward, head low, teeth bared as she struggled to advance. It was all I could do to keep a hand on her and manage my footing without being uprooted and swept away.

“How much longer?” I asked, stealing a glance to the side. With <Blade of Woe> in hand, I could still see the vitals of Nick, Gawain, and Sir Kay still holding the same formation. For now, at least, they were still standing. We needed to hurry.

“Hard… to say,” Talia grunted. Her nails scraped on the marble ground as the wind blew her back a few inches, and I went down on one knee to brace and steady her. A light-blue eye acknowledged me. “Thank you.” Her attention returned to the gale. “When we first entered the circle, it was more focused. Unyielding. It seems far more scattered now.”

“Any guesses why?”

“Unsure.”

I squinted, trying to make out anything in the darkness. There was nothing but swirling shapes, lines that almost formed discernible characteristics, only to vanish into malevolent mist. The only constant was—

Tendrils?

They were almost tangible. Not in the shadow itself, but the negative spaces. There were dozens of them. They reminded me of the threads, the connective tissue for everything when <Harrowing Anticipation> was active.

Suddenly paranoid, I checked my abilities to confirm. <Harrowing Anticipation> was still in deep cooldown from when I’d used it in the first ripple against the grimelings. There’d been no accidental cast.

“Can you see them?” I murmured to Talia.

She searched in the direction I was looking, then turned back to me with a worried expression. “See what? There’s nothing but darkness.”

Intrigued, I picked one out and traced it to its exit point. It swirled and wound a path of nothingness, all the way to the edge of the mist. They all did, each lining up with the glowing vitals of the Knights beyond.

My true-sight ability is on cooldown. Talia can’t see them. So why can I?

There was one just outside the shield. Nearly in arm’s reach. The rest seemed to be intentionally avoiding it, moving quickly, barely discernible spaces that moved with an unnerving serpentine grace.

I withdrew <Vorpal Gnasher> from my inventory. The dagger’s sharpness was fleeting, but it could punch through steel. If I was attempting to cut through something almost intangible, it was the best tool for the job.

With a deep breath, I swung the blade outside the barrier, directly toward one of the translucent tendrils, aiming for its center. The dagger passed through it with no resistance—but the tendril snapped away, severed portion emitting an audible squeal.

Bingo.

But the reprisal was swift and furious. A dozen smaller tendrils wrapped around my wrist before I could withdraw it into the shield, too fast for any warning, coiled tightly enough to cut off my circulation almost immediately. “Tal—”

I cut off mid-sentence as it yanked me out of the shield, into the black.

Darkness washed over me, frigid and complete.

Something pressed in on my mind, building pressure in my skull. I got an arm free, only to have it snagged by another tendril seconds later, grip significantly stronger than before. Whatever it was, it wasn’t trying to kill me yet. But <Jaded Eye> whispered that it’d be more than happy to break me if I kept struggling.

“Be still,” a voice commanded, abrasive and sibilant.

I went limp, playing at surrender. When I acted, it needed to be decisive. The tendrils grew thicker, closer together. The pressure in my mind grew, degrading Talia’s panicked attempts to reach me into nothing more but noise.

Getting closer to the source.

The pressure intensified. “You will serve me.”

“I will serve,” I answered.

“During your tenure in my service, you will obey my commands and destroy all enemies of the Round.”

“I will obey.” I could almost see him now. He struck an unimpressive silhouette in the gloom, almost half-skeletal. There was a void where his nose should have been, the flesh that surrounded it withered and black. He smiled widely, gums receded, teeth discolored and long. His chest was caved in, and a dozen tendrils emitted from his sternum.

“Once your tenure is complete, you will host my soul and deliver me from this godforsaken place.”

I maintained a blank expression. Between Gawain’s assertion that “the Wizard” was the one driving the Knights to violence, and the nature of the commands he was giving me, it was obvious. He had powers similar to mine. They weren’t working, but he had to think they were. Probably the only reason I was still alive.

He brought me closer, making a show of inspecting me, leering. “Out of every candidate in the cosmos, the Allfather chose you? Some honorless whelp?”

“I am unworthy,” I said, placating him.

“I’ll enjoy wearing your skin, boy. Correcting every flaw, erasing the weakness. Destroying any potential attachment that could lead you astray. Creating the perfect vessel.”

I suppressed the rage. Bottled it. I’d use it soon, but not until the perfect moment. I could feel Talia, struggling to close the distance, getting closer.

He drew me inches from his face. “Oh, the fun we’ll have.” Suddenly, his gleeful expression faltered. “What—”

“Now.”

The effect of Talia’s purification shield was immediate, and the wizard screamed, his leathery skin bubbling. The tendrils loosened as I fell with him, twisting in the air so my knee aligned with his chin, my full weight crushing his jaw against the floor. I wielded the vorpal blade like a scythe, slashing through the tendrils at his mid-section, hacking through the ghostly apparitions, trying to sever as many as I could before he could rally.

Even through the roar of the storm, I heard seemingly endless clanging as multiple Knights collapsed to the ground. Once the tendrils were gone, I put the blade to his throat.

He laughed a wet, blood-filled cough, uncaring as his throat bobbed against the blade, drawing beads of red. “Thought I smelled it on you. The lithid’s touch.”

“What about it?” I growled.

He raised an eyebrow, grinning through broken teeth. “If you’ve already met one, you’re more damned than I realized.”

Belatedly, I realized it was Eldritch Favor that saved my ass, preventing the Wizard from enslaving me. If we got out of this, I needed to shore up my mental defenses. Talia’s shield flickered. She warned me silently that she couldn’t hold it for much longer.

If the shield goes, we’re probably back where we started.

There was no time. Still pinning the old man down, I drove my dagger into the nerve cluster in his shoulder, bracing him as he screamed. “Only chance. Tell me something useful, and I’ll make it quick. Why do you have powers similar to mine? Are you an Ordinator?”

He giggled, halfway between delirium and agony. “You have no idea—”

I twisted the knife, backhanding him to shorten the resulting howl. “What about ‘only chance’ don’t you understand?”

He panted, his breaths small moans. Eldritch Favor was keeping me alive, but I could see the holes and tears in my armor slowly and steadily being eaten away, consumed by the shadow despite multiple layers of protection. As with any pure magic User, it was only a matter of time before he got to me.

“Did you think you were the only one? So childish. So impossibly naïve.” He coughed twice, then fixed me with a blank stare. “The slow plunge into dark waters, unknowing and uncaring of what lies beneath. Who are you doing this for?”

Still fixated on the first thing he said, I could feel the blood draining from my face. “There are other Ordinators?”

“Sickly daughter. Lover in dire straits. The family—” he smirked. “There it is. Yes, I think so. The family.”

I growled subconsciously, deep in my throat. “Think I’ve never seen a cold read before, asshole? This isn’t getting under my skin. All you’re doing is making this harder on yourself. Tell me about the others!”

“You’re jaded.” The old man nodded. “That’s good. Hold on to that. You’ll need it.”

“Last. Chance,” I reiterated, putting more weight on the knife.

“Then...” the man grunted. “I’ll tell you a secret. How strong you are? The power and influence you hold? None of it matters.”

“Myrddin.” Talia was calling my name. But the faraway look in the old man’s eyes transfixed me. So unfathomably vast, filled with bittersweet regret.

He spoke slowly, as if every word aged him. “Even if you bring the world itself to its ancient knees, it won’t matter. Because no matter how careful you are, the core flaw remains the same. The people you’re discarding your humanity for? They’re as damned as the day they were born. You can’t save them. Because you can’t protect them from yourself.”

An icy chill went through me. I refused to show any reaction, make any movement to give away the distress that rampaged through my psyche, but he’d gotten to me in a way so few people could.

“Matt!” Talia roared.

Somehow, I came back to myself just in time. The old man’s eyes caught fire, violet flame transforming them into a charred ruin as he opened his mouth, violet illuminating his throat.

Suicide attack.

I gripped his head tightly with both hands and snapped his neck. Gouts of flame escaped his mouth, singing my fingers, and I leapt off him as the fire consumed him from within. In a matter of seconds, his tattered robe and the flesh beneath was consumed, leaving nothing but a blackened corpse.

Well. Almost nothing.

There was a glittering at the center of his chest, refracting the light of the last few embers of his body that had yet to burn out. At first I thought it was a monster core. But the shape and color were both wrong. It was a trilliant cut gem, the color of an amber so dark it was almost black.

I reached down tentatively, ash crumbling around my fingertips as I gripped it and pulled. It was hot to the touch, even through the thick material of my gauntlet. As soon as the gem came free, the swirling shadows thinned and dissipated, revealing the chamber beyond.

<Level Up: Ordinator has reached Level 18.>

<Level Up: Ordinator has reached Level 19.>

<Legendary Material Acquired: Essence of Merlin (Incomplete)>