~~~

  Threnval felt the compulsion wrap around his will like chains forged from Fate itself.

  The mortal's skill latched onto something fundamental in his existence and pulled. His legs moved without permission. His body obeyed despite every instinct screaming to resist.

  The edge of the building rushed closer. Twenty stories of empty air waited beyond.

  No. NO.

  Threnval tried to dig his claws into the rooftop. Tried to anchor himself with aura. Tried to summon the shadows that were his birthright as the Abyssal Child.

  Fate didn't care.

  His feet left solid ground, and gravity claimed him.

  Wind roared past as Vienna's streets rushed up to meet him. Threnval twisted mid-air, dark flames erupting from his body to slow the descent. His wings—vestigial things that had never needed to function—spread wide and caught air.

  The door below him opened, prompting Threnval to shield himself instinctively. But no attack came. No lava poured out. Instead, he found himself being engulfed.

  Threnval roared and flared his aura. Darkness mixed with divine blessings formed a barrier against the force. His claws raked at empty air, searching for purchase that didn't exist.

  The pull intensified. Reality bent around the threshold, distorting light and sound until everything became a screaming vortex of wrongness.

  Threnval's barrier cracked. Shattered. His body lurched forward, and the door swallowed him whole.

  The frame clicked shut with a pleasing sound.

  ???

  The world inverted.

  Threnval tumbled through impossible space. The moment was brief before the door spat him out high, so high that Vienna spread below him like a child's toy city, buildings reduced to geometric patterns against dark streets. From his position, Threnval could see the peak of the Veil, his father's divine mandate made manifest.

  The wind slammed into him like a physical wall.

  He spread his wings properly this time, catching air to stabilize his fall. His eyes scanned the surrounding space, searching for threats.

  Another door opened thirty feet away.

  Joe emerged in a leisurely freefall, hands already moving through complex gestures that left glowing afterimages in the air. No panic in his posture. No fear of death waiting below.

  Just focus.

  Runes flared to life around Joe's hands, crimson script that burned themselves into reality with the hiss of hot metal meeting water. The air itself seemed to ignite as the spell took shape.

  Twenty. Thirty. Forty runes materialized in rapid succession.

  Joe's lips moved in a chant too fast for human vocal cords, syllables blurring together into a continuous stream of power that made the air shimmer.

  The runes condensed and compressed as the essence transformed into lances of pure destructive force.

  And they launched.

  Forty spears of crimson essence streaked toward Threnval like falling stars.

  Joe, almost conversational even amid war, called out over the rush: “Breathtaking view, by the way. Shame it’ll be your last.”

  Threnval’s reply was a snarl.

  Dark flames exploded outward from his body in a perfect sphere, encasing him in a shell of corruption and divine power.

  The crimson lances struck the sphere, each blast a deafening crack against the barrier. Essence discharged in cascading explosions, painting the sky with apocalyptic light.

  But the sphere held.

  Through the barrier of darkness, Threnval watched Joe fall. Pale hands flicked again. The spells vanished; doors opened mid-flight and swallowed the remaining lances before they could strike.

  Joe vanished too, stepping sideways through a door that hadn't existed a heartbeat before.

  The dark sphere dissipated. Threnval tumbled alone toward the earth. Wind howled. The ground rushed closer—still thousands of feet below, but approaching with certainty.

  Threnval’s mind reeled. Where was the crimson-eyed mortal? From what angle would the next attack come? Above? Below? Behind?

  Threnval's eyes turned milky white as his body went limp. His gaze latched onto the veil above, the blessing of his father flowing through his blood. The veil itself pulsed in resonance with his essence, and through that connection, Threnval saw.

  Spatial distortions mapped themselves across his perception like a three-dimensional web, the air around him shimmering with traces. Every door left faint scars that only the powers of the veil could detect.

  There, twenty feet behind and dropping fast. A distortion forming. A door about to—

  Another door opened.

  Not behind him. Beneath him.

  Threnval severed the connection as his head snapped down, eyes widening as he recognized what lay beyond the threshold.

  Burning crimson. Not fire but pure molten essence compressed to liquid form.

  The heat radiating from the opening was a furnace blast, and Threnval felt his flesh begin to melt as momentum pushed him halfway through the threshold.

  Pain.

  Agony.

  Flesh sloughed off bones that blackened and cracked. His blessing fought to regenerate the damage, but the rate of destruction exceeded his capabilities.

  Threnval's aura erupted in a scream of agony and wrath. Darkness bled from him like ink, tendrils wrapping the doorway frame.

  He twisted.

  The tendrils tightened, and spiderweb cracks spread through the door's frame. Wood that shouldn't be able to break under physical force groaned as Threnval's divine blessings contested the enemy's powers.

  The frame shattered.

  Joe appeared from another door, hands outstretched toward the breaking threshold. Blood dripped from his eyes. The feedback from having his mantle manifestation destroyed carved pain through his body.

  With burning fury, Joe clenched his fist and willed the essence into motion.

  The door exploded.

  Lava erupted outward in a geyser of molten essence. The liquid fire splashed across Threnval's body, and the Abyssal Child's roar reached new octaves of agony as his flesh was scoured away layer by layer.

  Joe fell past him, wind whipping his coat.

  I can bring someone or something in from outside, but can't send anything inside to the outside.

  The realization clearly annoyed him.

  Threnval forced his regeneration into a frenzy. Flesh knitting back together over blackened bone. He'd had enough of this mortal's tricks.

  Dense aura mixed with divine power burst from his body like a shockwave. The blessing of the Darkened One flowed through his veins, and Threnval let it consume him—let his father's power fill every cell until mortal limitations became suggestions to be discarded.

  His mouth opened. Two voices emerged. One guttural and bestial—his own. The other divine, layered with power that made reality shimmer and distort.

  "WAYFINDER. YOUR DOORS WILL NOT SAVE YOU."

  Joe grinned through the blood still coating his teeth, but his eyes gleamed with murder.

  "So the monster speaks," Joe said, voice carrying that mellow tone that made Threnval's fury spike higher. "Here I thought you were just a spawn of someone's madness."

  "I AM THE TRUE CHILD OF MY FATHER!" The divine voice resonated with each word. “BORN OF HIS ESSENCE, BLESSED WITH HIS POWER, INHERITOR OF HIS WILL!”

  Joe's expression shifted to something genuinely amused. "That's a weird thing to say, but okay." He shrugged mid-freefall. "I'll make sure your remains are mailed to your dearest father. You want gift wrap with that? Maybe a nice card?"

  The mockery ignited something primal in Threnval's chest.

  Snap.

  Twenty doors materialized in a perfect circle around Threnval.

  Snap.

  Every door opened at once.

  Lava erupted from each in thick streams, converging on Threnval's position like artillery fire. The temperature spiked so drastically that the air itself ignited, creating a sphere of superheated atmosphere around the Abyssal Child.

  Threnval didn't dodge. He let the lava wash over him like a tidal wave of molten stone.

  "YOUR TRICKERY WON'T SAVE YOU THIS TIME!" he thundered, and from him a wave of darkness erupted, blasting away the lava.

  The darkness expanded and swallowed Joe's doors. Sharp pain shot through Joe's mind. Grunting, he reeled from the mental attack, that short moment of lapse turning deadly as Threnval's corrupted essence expanded, forming a massive circular platform hovering in the air.

  Dark flames licked across the platform. This wasn't a normal power or skill. This was a manifestation of something deeper.

  Joe felt creeping dread as he realized things were about to take a far more perilous turn.

  "WAYFINDER, YOU SHALL CONFRONT ME HERE, IN MY SANCTUARY!"

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  The declaration carried weight beyond mere words. Compulsion laced through the syllables—not a request but a command backed by divine authority.

  Joe felt it latch onto his being like hooks sinking into flesh. The pull was irresistible—Fate itself demanding he answer the challenge. His body moved without permission, spatial awareness orienting him toward the platform.

  Joe fought the compulsion. Tried to throw open a door and retreat.

  The compulsion yanked, and Joe found himself standing on dark flames that immediately began creeping up his legs.

  The fire didn't burn like normal flames—it invaded, corrupting from the inside out.

  Joe grunted and flared his aura. Crimson essence exploded outward, creating a barrier between himself and the encroaching darkness. The two forces collided and hissed, reality distorting where they met.

  But the dark flames were relentless. They pushed against his defenses, seeking any weakness, any crack in his protection.

  Snap.

  More doors appeared around the platform—but something was wrong. Joe felt the resistance immediately. The connections were sluggish, like pushing through thick mud instead of cutting through empty space.

  His previously opened doors guttered and died, snuffed out by the oppressive presence of Threnval's sanctuary.

  Joe gritted his teeth and snapped again. Forced more doors into existence through sheer will and burning essence.

  These ones were different. Tiny—barely large enough for a fist to fit through. They surrounded Threnval in a three-dimensional maze, hovering in the spaces between spaces where normal perception couldn't track them.

  Much too small for Threnval to notice all of them. Too numerous to defend against simultaneously.

  Joe's perception fractured, taking in everything at hyper speed. This was the real power of his Mantle—not just opening doors, but mapping space itself. Every threshold became a point he could manipulate, observe, strike through.

  Any attempt at spatial manipulation met the sanctuary's boundaries, clamping down like a vice.

  Joe knew instantly what he was dealing with—a pseudo-domain, formed with divine assistance.

  Well, no quick escape then.

  He was stuck within the bounds of Threnval's power until one of them stopped breathing.

  Wonderful. Fortunately, this is not a true domain, but even then…

  A domain was a death sentence even for someone at his level. Even a pseudo one. The advantage was too overwhelming—every attack enhanced, every defense multiplied, the very laws of reality bending to favor the Domain's master.

  He would have to tread very carefully. From what he could figure, the domain had summoning and corruption tied into its fundamental nature. But Joe knew better than to assume that was everything. Domains always had hidden tricks—nasty surprises for enemies who got too comfortable.

  Dark flames erupted from the platform's surface in pillars of corrupted fire. Joe leaped, rolled, and came up running. His boots barely touched the dark surface before launching again, staying mobile, refusing to present a stationary target.

  Threnval remained motionless at the platform's center, arms spread wide, eyes blazing with milky light. Joe noticed the pattern quickly. Whenever Threnval used the domain's active powers, he went immobile. Even when summoning abominations from the dark flames, his body was locked in place like a statue.

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. That pause... could be the opening.

  "Come, old friend," Joe murmured. His voice barely carried, yet it echoed loudly. He extended one hand, fingers trembling not with fear, but anticipation. "Let us cut down the beast before us… and watch the world bleed for daring to stand in our way."

  Blood cascaded from his outstretched hand and solidified into a long, sharp lance. Joe exhaled, and his aura detonated outward—silent, invisible, yet heavy enough that the air itself shuddered. In response, silver runes crawled to life along the lance's shaft.

  "As usual, you're always so damn hungry," he added, half to himself.

  Taking his stance, Joe stabbed the weapon into the empty air ahead of him.

  Space cracked.

  A soundless shiver rippled through the world as the tip of the lance disappeared into a tiny door no larger than a fist, its edges outlined in pale, unnatural glow.

  The lance's tip erupted from a second door that snapped into existence behind Threnval, no warning, no sound, just a sudden tear in reality. It punched cleanly into the monster's back between the shoulder blades, burying itself deep before vanishing again.

  Joe was already moving. The soles of his boots were enchanted with specific properties that enabled essence dispersion, and as he channeled essence, he transitioned into a smooth glide across the invasive, corrupting floor of the domain.

  Joe knew how essence-draining this was, but he was sure it was much better than being distracted and using more of his mental capacity to fight the corruption.

  I need to finish this fast.

  Narrow doorways flickered into existence around him like blinking eyes, each perfectly mirroring the angle of his stance, the twist of his wrists, the momentum of his breath.

  He thrust.

  Another doorway snapped open beside Threnval's ribs.

  He thrust again.

  A slit of pale light formed above its collarbone, and the lance erupted out of it like a striking serpent.

  From impossible angles, each blow landed. Each one is true. Each one is exact.

  Hand-deep wounds riddled the monster's flesh, each oozing thick, darkened blood that steamed as it hit the platform and merged with the dark fires.

  Threnval staggered, its massive frame trembling under the accumulating devastation.

  “ENOUGH!” The roar cracked the shadow platform like a gong struck inside bone. “YOU WILL OBEY THE WILL OF THE LORD!”

  From Threnval, darkness erupted, a devastating wave combining aura, corruption, and divine fury.

  The tiny doors Joe had woven around the battlefield shattered in unison.

  Pain lanced through Joe's skull as his connections to half of them were severed simultaneously.

  He staggered, vision going red around the edges.

  Threnval capitalized immediately. He vanished, crossing thirty feet in a single bound.

  Joe cursed under his breath as he slipped sideways, keeping himself to the edge of the platform.

  Threnval's enraged flurry came down in a storm of claws, wings, and dark flames. Each strike was heavy enough to shear through any defense or shield he could cast.

  Every clash numbed his arms.

  Every counterstrike sent shocks up his bones.

  I can't compete in pure strength.

  His aura flared again, shredding the shadows around him in a violent burst. Muscles bulged, veins lit like molten silver beneath his skin, and he drove a piercing strike straight at Threnval's center mass.

  Feeling the killing intent behind the blow, Threnval halted mid-lunge. Crossed his arms, then folded both wings over the guard like a shield of living iron.

  Joe's attack hit.

  BOOM.

  The explosion cracked the sound barrier, rupturing the air in a violent shockwave that hurled both fighters backward like ragdolls flung by giants.

  Joe spun through the air, pain lancing up his right arm.

  His hand, the one gripping the lance, was shattered and mangled. Bone shards pressed against torn flesh.

  He hissed through clenched teeth, flicked his fingers, and a potion snapped into existence from his spatial storage. Joe popped the cork with his thumb and poured it over his ruined hand. Pale red liquid splashed across the bloodied mess, hissing as it touched exposed bone.

  "Damn it… at this rate I'll burn through all my good potions," he muttered, grabbing another vial and downing it in a single swallow.

  Warmth surged through him. The hand knit. Scars closed. The ache faded.

  When he looked back up, Joe's lips curved.

  Threnval's entire left side had been obliterated.

  Bone was exposed. Arms and wings shredded to ribbons.

  As Joe watched, the monster drew in the surrounding darkness like breath. Darkness crawled across its ruined flesh, knitting it together in pulsing bands of corruption. The shroud deepened until Threnval was swallowed by a towering halo of black.

  And from that darkness, figures began to rise.

  Hundreds.

  Abominations dragged themselves out of the void pooling beneath Threnval's feet, each one malformed, snarling, eager to tear Joe apart.

  Joe's scowl carved deeper across his face.

  He reached into his spatial storage and yanked out dozens of inscribed crystals—each one covered in dense script, runic arrays that had cost him a small fortune to commission from a Master-rank enchanter.

  He hurled them in a spread across the platform while retreating at a sprint, each stone hitting with a heavy clack.

  The explosions came in a cascading chain.

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  Each stone detonated with the force of a peak ORDER III attack, fire and force expanding outward in overlapping spheres of destruction. The platform shook. Abominations that had been rising from the dark flames were caught in the blasts and torn apart before they could fully manifest.

  But more kept coming. The domain fed Threnval's summons endlessly, pulling creatures from whatever abyss the Darkened One ruled.

  Joe dashed forward as the world blurred around him. His coat billowed behind him, and more abominations started clawing their way up from the platform to intercept him.

  "Tch." Joe clicked his tongue in annoyance.

  Mid-leap, he cocked his arm and threw.

  The lance left his hand like crimson lightning. It punched through a rising abomination's skull and dissolved it back into dark essence.

  A door opened, and the lance vanished. Joe caught it as it exited another door directly into his waiting hand without breaking stride.

  "MORTAL!"

  A chill snaked up Joe's spine as the battlefield shook with a roar. His head snapped around to see Threnval reappearing from the darkness.

  The shadows peeled back from its form, revealing a body still fatally wounded, but… wrong. The wounds were closed, but it seemed Threnval had forced his body to mutate instead of regenerate the missing limbs.

  Most of Threnval's right side was the same, but its left side had twisted into something barely recognizable. Ribs jutted outward in long, spear-like spikes, half-fused over raw new flesh that pulsed wetly with every breath. His wings—once broad and regal—were now crooked things, only half-repaired. New segments had sprouted along their lengths, branching out like skeletal fingers that twitched with unnatural life.

  The platform trembled as it stepped forward, each movement twitchy and uneven as if learning how to control its newly warped and heavily unbalanced body.

  It opened its jaw; reattaching tendons snapped. “YOU WILL FALL, MORTAL.” Darkness poured from its mouth like smoke. “AND WHEN YOU DO I SHALL MAKE YOUR MORTAL FLESH MINE!”

  Threnval clapped his hands together.

  More summons started rising from the dark flames.

  The platform itself began actively impeding Joe's movement. Dark flames rose like walls, trying to funnel him into kill zones.

  Joe gritted his teeth and forcefully opened a door in his path. Rolled through it as the space around him tried to drag him back—the domain's influence fighting his spatial manipulation like an immune system attacking a virus.

  Twisting his hand, Joe opened the door vertically and fell up through it. Gravity reversed as he passed the threshold, sending him shooting toward the sky above the platform.

  His hands moved in a circle. An immense crimson spell circle formed, bleeding light like a wound in the darkness.

  Joe's voice rose in a chant—syllables flowing together in an ancient tongue. The circle responded, growing larger with each word, bleeding more light until it rivaled the platform in size.

  He pushed the circle upward with both hands. It ascended and expanded until it hung parallel to Threnval's dark platform.

  Mirror images of opposing power.

  Joe fell back onto the dark platform, landing in a crouch that sent fresh agony through his broken ribs. He matched gazes with Threnval across the fifty feet of corrupted ground.

  And for the first time, Joe noticed.

  Threnval was bleeding from every orifice—eyes, nose, mouth, ears. The dark blood flowed nonstop, and the Abyssal Child's movements were slightly erratic. Unfocused.

  Much of the enemy's attention was turned inward. Controlling something. Maintaining something that required constant concentration.

  Joe's mind clicked through possibilities. The domain required active maintenance. The summoning was automatic. So what was Threnval focusing on so intensely that it made him vulnerable?

  Then he remembered Jin's new affliction skills.

  Good work, Jin. Good work.

  There was something else as well. Joe could feel wisps of power but couldn't pinpoint the source.

  He's completing something... Something that requires him to maintain perfect focus despite everything happening.

  Joe's lips curled into a maniacal grin as he gazed up at his circle. Blood dripped from his mouth, his eyes. He looked like hell incarnate, and he'd never felt more alive.

  "This will be fun." Joe pulled a rainbow-colored potion from the air. He uncorked it with his teeth and chugged the contents.

  The potion burned going down like swallowing molten glass. But the effect was immediate.

  His essence reserves topped off completely, the depletion from sustained combat vanishing as if it had never existed.

  But the potion did more than heal. Much more.

  Power surged through Joe's body in waves that made his Mantle Heart pulse like a second sun in his chest. His eyes began to glow—burning crimson that cast light across the dark platform.

  The massive spell circle above responded to the power increase. It pulsed once, twice, then the world began to bleed.

  Crimson drops started traveling upward instead of falling.

  Every abomination on the platform died instantly.

  Their bodies didn't collapse. They exploded—blood erupting from every pore, every wound, every opening. The crimson fluid jetted upward to join the streams feeding the circle above.

  From the center of that vast circle, a single eye began to open.

  Joe started floating—not through active levitation, but through passive effect. The circle was pulling him upward like iron to a lodestone. His feet left the dark platform, and he rose toward his creation with arms spread wide.

  Below him, Threnval roared.

  The blessing of the Darkened One exploded from his body like a detonating star. Darkness erupted in waves that consumed light itself—not just blocking illumination but absorbing it, turning the surrounding space into a void that drank photons.

  Space bent and twisted. Eldritch tentacles formed from the corruption—appendages that had too many joints, covered in mouths that whispered secrets that made sanity bleed.

  Joe and Threnval faced each other across the vertical distance. The Crimson Wayfinder rising toward his crimson circle. The Abyssal Child standing in the heart of his dark sanctuary.

  Both of them began to chant.

  The words were low. Ancient. Each syllable carried weight that made reality shudder and crack at the seams.

  Joe's chant flowed like blood—liquid and warm, carrying the essence of life twisted into a weapon.

  "Crimson tide, rise and judge.

  What bleeds, what breaks, what bows.

  Mark the living, claim the dying,

  In red dominion, all shall drown."

  Threnval's chant was darker. Colder. Each word tasted like ash and corruption.

  "Shadow birth, void consume.

  What lives, what dies, what writhes.

  Bless the darkness, feed the father,

  In black eternity, all shall sleep."

  The two chants wove together like competing melodies in a symphony of destruction. The air between them cracked—reality itself unable to contain the opposing forces.

  Joe's crimson circle pulsed. The eye at its center opened fully—an iris of pure blood that gazed down with terrible awareness.

  Threnval's darkness coalesced. The tentacles merged and solidified into a sphere of absolute void that seemed to pull at the fabric of existence itself.

  Both of them spoke the final words simultaneously,

  And reality screamed.

  ~~~

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