To her surprise—though she really shouldn't have been surprised, at this point—Derivan was right. There was a lot to learn from the festival. It was called the Festival of Stolen Light, apparently, and had something to do with a divine war that resulted in light being spread all across the land. The dances and forms they had to perform to get through the exit were specific physical forms that were somehow capable of manipulating divine threads. Of casting divine spells, even without input from a god, though that was obviously frowned upon.

Misa couldn't deny that a part of her wanted to learn it just to mess with Sev. But all they had time for was the basic forms, which was enough to pull apart the divine threads that would unveil the portal to their next fragment.

She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised that they were stepping into a warzone, especially considering Derivan had pretty much already warned her of exactly this. Derivan certainly didn't seem surprised.

"Derivan," she called. He was walking through the streets like nothing was happening, and Misa groaned as she ducked and dashed to follow after him. He wasn't even bothering to dodge the spells! They splashed off him harmlessly—

—Oh. Right. They were pretty high level at this point, weren't they? She could barely feel the amount of power the people here were using as part of their war, and when she let one of the spells splash against her forearm experimentally, it did... precisely one damage.

"You should've told me it was safe," she complained as she caught up with Derivan. The armor sounded a little amused when he responded, though even that amusement was still more hollow than she would've liked.

"You are, if anything, more durable than I am at this stage," he said. "I did not expect to need to clarify."

"...Okay, you've got a point there," Misa admitted.

Derian cut a path straight through the chaos, purposeful and steady. She followed after him. Even if she didn't need to worry about the spells hitting her, she still needed to worry about them hitting the soulbloom potions strapped to her body—there wouldn't be a point in reaching Vex if they didn't still have the remedy for his condition.

So for that, she was very, very careful.

Every so often, she glanced back at her system interface, hoping against hope that there would be an update from Vex—and she noticed Derivan doing the same thing, even if he tried to be subtle about it. They had no luck there, unfortunately, and both of them knew why.

Vex didn't have system access. The effects of soulstrain would've weakened him severely, preventing him from accessing the interface and most of the skills that he'd earned through the system. He still had his glyphs, so he wasn't defenseless, but...

"It will be difficult for him to use his glyphs," Derivan said quietly, answering her unspoken question. "Mana channels exist both in the body and in the soul. His mana channels will be burned far beyond anything he has experienced before—including what his family did to him in his past."

There was a small note of anger in Derivan's voice; Misa didn't blame him. "Since when could you read minds?" she asked.

"Physical Empathy has reached a point where it is capable of more than it should be able to do," Derivan admitted after a moment. "I cannot... read minds, per se. But you are close to me. As are Sev and Vex. I can read you three more easily than I can others, and even interpret what you might be thinking."

"Well, damn," Misa said. "Kinda wish that worked on our enemies."

"It would be useful, if we had enemies we could fight." Derivan's answer was surprisingly solemn, and Misa took a second to take it in.

It would make things easier, wouldn't it? If their enemy wasn't something unseen, wasn't a natural phenomenon of monumental proportions. If their enemy had just been something they could punch...

But then, if all their enemies were someone like Irvis, she wondered where they would be now.

"I'm kind of glad, honestly," she said, surprising herself. "That we're not fighting each other still. Everything's come to a head, and at this point, if we were still fighting one another, I'm not sure we'd be able to get through this."

"I am surprised to hear this, coming from you." Derivan gave her a smile—a genuine one, too. It wasn't without its sadness, but Misa felt her heart fill a little at the sight. "You are normally eager to fight."

"Yeah, well... Fighting's fun," Misa said. "But I can fight whenever I want. Fuck, I've got people waiting to spar with me, and I think there's a goddamn queue at the Guild at this point for some reason."

Derivan seemed amused. "You should not be surprised. Many of your opponents like your spirit."

"Bah," Misa grumbled. "The point is, yeah, having something to fight might make things a little easier in some ways. But... I'm kind of glad this is what we're fighting. I'm glad it's not some evil jerk that's convinced a horde of people to fight for their cause—imagine the amount of collateral we'd have to deal with if we had to fight someone's minions."

"The thought is unpleasant," Derivan admitted.

"At least almost everyone can agree the end of the universe is bad," Misa said. "Like it or not, this has brought most of us together. Anderstahl and Elyra aren't fighting anymore. The Elyran nobles have to hang out with their so-called commoner counterparts. I mean, there are still some assholes out there, but when aren't there assholes?"If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"I believe there is at least one priest preaching that the end of the universe is good and proper, and that we should simply allow it to happen," Derivan said.

"Gods," Misa snorted. "Bet his god ain't happy with that one."

"He has been cut off from his connection to the divine. But he does have a small following."

"Not one that's getting any bigger, I hope."

Derivan shook his head. "No. The Guild monitors people like these—keeps them in check. It may be comforting to turn to acceptance when it seems that there is nothing to be done, but it is only that."

"A comfort," Misa agreed. "And I think most of us want a little more than cheap comfort."

"I want a future," Derivan said. Misa thought his voice sounded a little softer—there was a note of longing in there she'd never heard from him before. "It took so many years for me to come into my own, Misa. It took even longer for me to understand what I want. Vex once asked me if I had goals of my own to pursue, outside of magic, because he believes the joy I find in magic is partly due to the joy I find in him."

"And is that true?" Misa asked.

"Perhaps." Derivan shrugged. "It does not matter, I think. Because magic does bring me joy. And more than that, I have goals of my own: I wish to restore the Scimitar people. I wish to learn the traditions of my kind. I wish to create magic with Vex, and to live in a place with him that we can call our home."

"And Sev and I?" Misa's voice was teasing; she didn't mind indulging him. Derivan's thoughts on the future were anchoring him in their search, keeping him determined instead of depressed.

"You would be our neighbors, of course," Derivan answered immediately, as if he'd been anticipating that very question. "Or perhaps we could live in one big building together?"

Misa laughed. "I'm not sure about that," she said. "I feel like you two are a little loud for us. Or maybe it's just Vex?"

A very long pause. "The next exit will require us to rebuild a wall," Derivan said, apparently deciding to change topics. She smirked a bit. "There is a mural on it. It is a puzzle."

"Vex would've loved that," Misa said softly. She strode up to the ruined wall, looking at it critically. "Well... let's get this done, then. Maybe we can bring him back to see the wall once we're done."

"We will." Derivan's tone left no room for argument, and Misa agreed.

They picked up the bricks and got to work.

"Okay, there's something I need to do to get through this," Vex said, staring critically at the wall in front of him. There was a pattern of bricks sticking out of the wall, though why it had been built so haphazardly he had no idea. If he had full access to his skills, he would've used his [Advanced Mana Sight] to peer at the inner workings of the wall, but... that path was closed to him right now.

He tried not to think about it. He had other ways to analyze walls. "Let's see," he muttered to himself, poking at one of the bricks. He jumped when it actually moved against his touch, wriggling a bit and then sliding out of the wall entirely, then flopping onto the ground like a fish would if removed from the water. "Uh. Weird."

Vex still wasn't sure how he felt about talking to himself like this. Every time he did, it reminded him of how weak he sounded. On the other hand, it kept him sane. Speaking out loud made him feel like he was explaining things to his teammates, or to Derivan. It felt familiar, and that familiarity was a comfort.

Right now, Vex would take any source of comfort he could get.

Except sleep. He was pretty sure sleeping in his condition was a bad idea, no matter how comfy some of the beds he'd come across looked.

I'm not gonna give up.

The ache in his chest had only grown worse, and it had slowly begun to spread. Vex was beginning to become terribly aware of the fact that he was much worse off than he initially assumed, and he'd initially assumed that he was dying. But most of his spells weren't even accessible to him. He couldn't cast system spells, and glyphs didn't work, because he needed to paint them with mana, and his mana channels were seared so thoroughly he wasn't certain he could summon any without worsening his condition.

He'd tried once and then decided he wouldn't try again unless it became absolutely necessary. It had taken him a full minute to get up from the ground after writhing in pain.

Slowly, he bent over—moving any faster would also have hurt, because whatever had happened to him had damaged him in more ways than one, and the system was no longer simply restoring him instantly to prime condition—and picked up the still-wriggling brick, eyeing it skeptically.

"What do I know about my situation?" he asked himself. "One, I'm trapped in a version of Enkiros that seems to be empty, which is weird. Two, it's smaller than it should be—this place has boundaries. Three... Ow. Three, this looks like it should be an exit, and there's mana traveling through it. The Primordial Glyph goes this way. But I can't go through it myself. It's almost like the exit contingent on something else?"

He refused to believe there wasn't a way through—that he was just stuck in some sort of empty plane-between-planes. What did the planeshifted call it? Purgatory, or something.

"The exit being contingent on something else..." Vex narrowed his eyes. "Like a dungeon. Am I in a dungeon?"

He shouldn't have been. He'd recreated Enkiros, and part of that was certainly the divine kingdom's Prime Dungeon, but the kingdom that sat on top of it shouldn't have been part of it. But something had gone wrong with the spell, and more than that, the system had been acting up.

"Let's assume I'm in a dungeon," Vex said slowly. He glanced at the brick. It was moving still, although much more slowly now that he was carrying it. "That means there are going to be puzzles. Challenges. And dungeon challenges are almost always based on some kind of internal logic, typically testing something."

He stared at the wall in front of him again, then looked around. The buildings were placed rather strangely, now that he thought about it. And the ones with lights in them—the ones with food and drink and water, including the bakery he'd stuffed himself in—they matched about half of the bricks protruding from the wall, if he assumed each building was represented in the wall itself.

So if his theory was right, and he was meant to touch the active buildings...

The brick he'd touched had been one of them. Vex rapidly pressed another five in quick succession, mapping them out to the active buildings he'd seen while exploring. Five more bricks crawled out of the wall and flopped onto the floor.

Then the entire wall collapsed, revealing a swirling portal behind it.

"Yes," Vex cheered quietly, then winced when the movement hurt. Ignoring it, he stepped through the portal.

One step closer to... wherever he was going.