Ethan could hear the tightening of Garm’s arrow in his bowstring.

  He could feel the power behind the tip of the projectile that was aimed right at his forehead.

  But nonetheless, he smiled.

  “This battle is over.”

  Garm cocked his head to the side, watching his prey’s every movement. But he could detect no little twitches or flourishes – none of the Archon’s famous tricks.

  “Getting delusional before the end, eh?” he asked. “Happens to the best of us.”

  But before he loosed the arrow and let it fly, finally ending the nightmare of Argwyll, his eyes widened and his mind raced.

  Because 100 miles away, something was happening.

  ***

  -100 miles away-

  Inquisitor Mathias Garm sat and sipped on some piping hot green tea inside his cave dwelling, wiping small splashes of warm liquid from his moustache as he reclined in his easy chair, savoring a good hunt.

  Through the eyes of his Primary illusory clone, he watched the dark angel as it squirmed beneath him, telling him that the fight was well and truly over.

  “Course it is,” the real Garm muttered to himself. “You never had a chance to begin with.”

  The hunter smiled and looked out the mouth of his cave den towards the foggy stretch of crumbled mountains where the real battle had taken place. He savored his next sip – for it carried with it the taste of victory.

  He’d thought the Archon might have been wise to his ruse when he first set eyes of him – looking through the eyes of his cloned-image. Indeed, he’d readied a sniper-bolt just in case the Archon did decide to fire his death-rays over in this direction. Luckily, he’d been too focused on wiping the smirk of Garm’s clone.

  The Inquisitor was now looking through the clone’s eyes to see the Archon grovel beneath him.

  But something about his face during the entire battle had irked Garm. That little sliver of a smile he had plastered across his corrupted features…there’d been something in that. Something behind it.

  And now he looked upon that exact same smile and realized – too late – that there was far more behind it than he thought.

  His eyes picked out movement at the mouth of his cave. He spun, drew five Seeker arrows, and sent them flying through the reflective barrier he’d erected there. The arrows flashed with killing light, intent on seeking out the five targets that had just appeared.

  A last-ditch effort by the Archon’s cronies, he thought. Should’ve wiped out those Hybrids before I took him on after all.

  But as he watched his Seeker arrows go right through his shield and the dark figures that had just entered his cave hideout, he saw that these were no Hybrids at all.

  Their forms were black, scintillating things. Sickly parodies of men draped in black smoke and cloaks of night.

  [Shadow Wraith] x5 LVL 50

  HP: 800/800

  [Become Ethereal] Activated (Grade S ability)

  The question pricked at the edge of Garm’s mind: how did he find me..?

  Looking back through the eyes of his clone-self, he saw that 30 minutes had not yet passed. The Archon shouldn’t have been able to use a Skill…

  And yet his monstrous minions were standing here staring at Garm, waiting for him to make a move.

  He drew his attention from his clone-sight and drew five more arrows. As he fired he sent the command to his clone to let his arrow fly. He’d take these bastard things down and their summoner with them all at once.

  As soon as their Ethereal forms stuttered and their bodies became tangible again, he let his arrows fly, piercing the black hearts of the fiends as they ran at him, screams of terror dribbling out of their pitch-black throats.

  And that’s when he saw the small red dots glowing inside their mouths.

  The last thing the real Mathias Garm saw before his entire world went up in flames was the black readout of his Appraisal screen:

  Implosion (Grade S)

  In a last-ditch effort to eradicate your foe, you imbue up to 5 objects nearby with a Smart-Bomb enchantment.

  Each bomb, when triggered, implodes for 1000 Spirit DMG in a 50ft radius.

  *Note: This Skill uses up all of the User’s MP

  Stolen novel; please report.

  ***

  Ethan let his smile drop as he watched Garm’s Mirror-Image fade away.

  Then – from out of sight – he heard the thunderous clarion of his own explosive blast. Of 5000 points of Spirit Damage being dealt to the master behind all his little puppets.

  He rose steadily, groaning a little at the wounds carved into his wings and side, and took a gulp of foggy air.

  It had been a costly plan – and one which he hadn’t even realized he would need until Garm deactivated his Skillset completely. But he was interested in contingencies these days – and he had the Skills to make as many as he wanted.

  He recalled dimly how he’d summoned up his Shadow Wraiths before the battle and commanded them to ‘find him’ – a short, simple statement that had seemed rather innocuous at the time. He’d added some Implosion bombs to them simply as a way to root out the hiding interloper and eradicate him quickly.

  But his Wraiths had taken it as literally as dutiful servants of darkness should. He’d known there was some bullshit going on when they didn’t all converge on the form of the little man as he appeared. So he’d waited. And he’d played the hunter’s game. And he’d enjoyed it – even the pain. It felt novel to be reminded of his own mortality after so long feeling above everyone and everything in Argwyll.

  As the thought took him, he looked back at the smooth doorway to the Architect’s layer that was just behind him, and he openly scoffed.

  Because maybe Sys was right. Maybe it was time to stop moping around chasing leads that went nowhere.

  He had a final bit of fun to enjoy before he headed to Mistborne, however. As his eyes focused on the incendiary cloud rising in the east, he homed in on one particular trail of smoke that looked distinctly more limb-y than the others.

  With a [Wing-Buffet] that broke what remained of the ground, he took to the skies, plucked Garm’s body from the smoke and ash, and set him down before the Architect’s layer.

  The little man coughed up phlegm and soot from his burnt insides. His body was a charred mess of its former self. Only one of his eyes could really be called ‘open’ – the lids having been seared off.

  “Y…you sly…son of a bitch.”

  Ethan was surprised he could even croak out those few words.

  “Speak for yourself,” he said as he sighed down at the little man. “You put up a better fight than your Cardinal and his precious Council did. There would have been a time when I’d ask you what led you down this path – was it Greycloak propaganda, blind belief in Kaedmon, or just plain enjoyment of the cruelty you could inflict on others that led you here to me? But at this point, I’m sure neither of us want to play that little game.”

  Garm had no response. He wretched, heaved, and tried to stand. But it was over. His HP probably lingered just around five or six at this point. It would be a mercy to extinguish what was left of his life now.

  The Inquisitor evidently agreed, for as he heaved himself up and grit his ashen teeth, he coughed out what would be his last words:

  “Go on then…do it.”

  Ethan rose and readied one flaming blade. He’d make it quick. A good hunter deserved as much, even if he was a Greycloak.

  He raised his blade and gripped it tight, feeling its flames lick around his fingers as he looked down on the pitiable, blackened creature.

  And then – he knew what he wanted to do. He knew that all he had to do was bring the blade down upon his charred skull.

  But something happened.

  His arm moved to strike down the coughing hunter, but the world changed. His vision clouded – and the decimated ground surrounding the Architect’s lair become filled with flaring, burning fire. Flames sprouted from the cracks in the earth. They sprouted from the sky – the dawn’s sun itself was replaced by a sphere of lambent green.

  The fires of his vision had come.

  Ethan looked around him as the world burned – blackened and raked of all life, just as inanimate and pitiable as the mewling hunter lying beneath him now. He could feel the heat – sense the intensity of the fire as it washed over him, willing him to bring the blade down and assume his place on the empty throne of Kaedmon.

  His hand shook as he returned his gaze to Garm. In this reality, the little man’s face was devoid of all features. His body slowly melted into the stony ground, seeping into the dead earth just like the destroyed Golem army of the Architect had mere hours ago.

  Then when only his face was left, Ethan saw a pair of eyes flame into life. Green eyes – eyes he’d seen before. Hair joined them – scraggly and unkept – framing a face that was pallid and gaunt, the face of a man who had given up on his world. Though the eyes of this man were piercing and strong – filled with malicious conviction – he could still recognize who it was.

  It was him – him as he was on earth. It was the face he’d seen that fateful morning when he looked into his mirror and tried to believe that his life had any meaning at all.

  And now that face, full to the brim with hatred, was snarling up at him.

  He fell. He staggered back and dropped his blade, shaking to try and free himself from the vile vision. He felt his breath constrict, and he felt his entire body lurch back as the creature – his flame engulfed earth-self – crawled towards him.

  The feeling deep in his gut was so palpable. It was a kind of revulsion he’d never felt before.

  “Enough!”

  The word was like a spell – just as soon as the image had spawned, it vanished.

  He was back in reality, looking down at a deeply confused and pained Garm. His blade was no longer in his hand.

  And though it seemed an impossibility, the burnt Greycloak actually managed a smile.

  “Archon…Ethan,” he groaned.

  The greens of his eyes dimmed, fading to nothingness as his wounds took him.

  “…even now…you spit…in our faces.”

  And then he was gone.

  Ethan remained at his side. While he waited for his System to come back online, he stayed with the body of the burned hunter and tried to understand what he had just witnessed.

  “Is it you, Lamphrey?” he said, looking down at the silver blood in his palm and noticing that he barely even registered the pain of his superficial wounds anymore.

  “Are you in here?” he asked the foggy expanse before him. “Are you reminding me of what may yet come to pass?”

  He dropped the line of questioning there, cursing himself for even considering it. Yes, she was part of him now. Her memories were his. But did that mean that she could truly work her Oneiromancy through him? Was her powers starting to bleed into his mind with such force that reality itself was beginning to warp?

  “Or am I just a victim of my own doubts?” he whispered, running a pale hand over his hat-form.

  When no answer was forthcoming, he bowed his head.

  “I wish you were here,” he said. “I wish you could guide me one final time.”

  …Lamphrey.

  Ethan’s eyes widened. At first, he couldn’t be sure that he’d even heard that booming voice.

  There is a name I have not heard spoken in many, many years.

  He looked round to see the door to the Architect’s lair glowing slightly with a faint silver shimmer.

  Archon, the Architect boomed in his mind. Why did you not slay the Greycloak with your own blade?

  Ethan gulped. He knew that nothing less than the truth would serve him here.

  “Because I was afraid.”

  He could almost feel the laughter of old Arty within his mind. Some things truly never changed.

  But the Architect did not laugh. Nor was there any malice in his voice.

  Afraid of what?

  “Of the only foe I know that is worth fearing the most.”

  The Architect hummed in his mind. After he said these words, he felt something in the ancient creature’s presence – something akin to admiration. Or perhaps a sort of begrudged respect.

  Then he saw the one thing in the world that he was sure he’d never see: like the lid being torn from a can of soup, the door to the Architect’s lair abruptly shot open.

  Archon Ethan, the venerable voice said. You are worthy.