Amidst fountains of torn parchment, framed by crumbling walls, dusty moonlight snatched two gigantic figures on all fours from the gloom.

  A multitude of swirls flowed over their elegant feminine forms, forged from dull silver, clustering especially densely on their heads, where they formed a semblance of static hairstyles. Their identical, smooth faces were majestic, impossibly sharp-nosed, and devoid of emotion. Folded behind their backs were wings resembling sets of blades. Voids gaped in their abdomens, constricted by an interweaving of thin rods, like bird cages in the middle of their bodies. They were beautiful, but with the beauty of lifeless perfection.

  “That’s...” whispered Esh, pinned to the floor by a toppled stack of books.

  “The Nephilim Laws,” Onyx breathed, scrambling out from under the rubble. Surprisingly red blood flowed from his furry head, and his eternal cheerfulness had already abandoned him. Clinging to the debris with his springy limbs, he rushed toward Esh, but Ortahn got ahead of it. “The materialized axioms of this world. You had better leave, readers. Now.”

  “Does it even matter now?” Ortahn asked fatalistically, holding a trembling Esh close.

  Despite their humanoid appearance, the Laws moved as if they did not understand how living bodies with joints were structured. Their actions resembled neither human, nor animal, nor even the mechanical movements of inorganic homunculi. They functioned like the very idea of a being (or something equally intangible) suddenly granted flesh—outside of spatial logic and with an inexplicable fluidity.

  The nearest Nephilim directed its palm toward them, almost lazily. At that exact moment, three Sentinels burst out from under the ruined staircase, to the deafening shriek of their own alarms. Their blue eyes blazed with determination, claws pointed forward at the violators of the library walls. The silver hand merely twitched in their direction, and all that remained of the Sentinels was a smeared wet stain, like a reflection in water that had suddenly lost the person it was reflecting.

  “Run!” Onyx shouted, and for the first time, its voice held not a high-pitched subservience, but a desperate command. “And know that your intensive functionality has allowed my functionality to be fully realized!”

  They obeyed and rushed to the nearest doorway, while Onyx straightened up, its limbs extending, coiling around everything in an attempt to draw the Laws’ attention. It succeeded. For one instant, its enormous amber eyes shone not with reflected light, but with their own. They crumpled him like a rag doll. Shreds of ginger fur and fragments of cartilaginous springs scattered.

  The gigantic palm descended from above. Esh flew into the air, her body jerking in surprise as she was caught between the massive fingers.

  “Ortahn!” she managed to breathe.

  The Nephilim brought her to its indifferent face. And swallowed. With a terrified shriek, Esh fell into the cage of its belly. The girl immediately scrambled to her feet and clung to the silver rods, while her precious notebook, swollen with knowledge, tumbled from her pocket and fell into the chaos of the ruined library.

  Ortahn lunged for her, but the other Law seized him. He felt his body pass through some unknown matter and collapsed into his own cage with a dull thud. Wasting no time, he tried to hurl a bolt of will at the bars. Nothing. Magic did not exist inside the Law. He was cut off from the aether, trapped in a place where only the laws of crude matter operated.

  Their gazes met for an instant through the bars. Esh clung to the rods, her eyes filled not only with fear but also a mute question. At that moment, her Nephilim spread its blades, finishing off the remnants of the library. Ortahn felt the wings moving behind his back. The library fell away below as they soared into the breach of the night. Ortahn slammed hard against the belly-floor, feeling a monstrous acceleration.

  "It's over", he realized, compressed and struggling to breathe.

  "Live", disagreed the memory of Viya.

  Ortahn felt the pressure tearing at his lungs, while the wind, trying to reach him through the rods, sharpened and whistled like blades. Adrenaline, hysterical strength, and animalistic fury filled him, incinerating other emotions. He grabbed the silver threads of his prison and began to push, pull, and tear the rods. Not magic, but physical might in synergy with pure will, which needed no aether. Muscles bulged, tendons strained to their limit, blood boiled in his veins, and his bones creaked under the load. But he was strong. Strong even without magical enhancements. He was a man!

  Ortahn let out a primal scream, in which the voices of all his male ancestors merged. The metal answered his cry with an unbearable screech, and for a moment, the laws of matter yielded to the laws of will. The rods bent and spread just enough for him to squeeze through.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  He fell out of the cage and landed hard on the sloping roof of a building, but soft moss cushioned the fall and kept him from sliding into the abyss. His Law had not noticed the escape, certain that without access to magic, humans were nothing.

  Ortahn breathed heavily, drenched in sweat. Struggling to his knees, he braced himself on trembling hands and looked up. Two silver silhouettes slid swiftly and irrevocably along the moonbeams toward the very heart of the city, toward the black, pointed tower of the Chancellery.

  "Why did they come?" Ortahn mused. "It definitely wasn't because of his words about the unity of magic. The Nephilim came physically, destroying the library; they didn't teleport. And no physical object possesses such reaction and movement speeds. His words simply wouldn't have had time to carry through the air to them in the sky, and the Nephilim would have pierced the canton through at enormous speed. Besides, the phrase itself posed no danger to the Chancellery: what could he do with it? Shout on the streets like a madman? The world would have just turned away, shrugging. Ideas don't topple empires or summon Nephilim. People do.

  Isila could have. But what are the Laws to her? She, by all appearances, is a walking violation of all laws herself. That left Tulila." He remembered her eyes: serene, attentive, almost soft, yet stern. And that barely perceptible moment when she was looking not at him, but into him, as if assessing the degree of the formula's completion. "And formulas need to be broken to see how they work. She wanted to see how far he would go, and decided it was far enough."

  A homunculus patrol emerged to meet him, pulling Ortahn from his stupor of deep reasoning. He walked without watching his step. The corridors of the Scar stretched out like an endless gut, illuminated by the blue linearity. The walls breathed the familiar warmth of chain-spells, and now he could see their primitive structure. His body pulsed with pain in time with his steps, which he couldn't help but welcome. The pain was at least some form of grounding, a tactile indicator of existence.

  He only vaguely remembered how he had gotten here: scattering the Golems at the entrance and tearing apart the Sphinx with something like Ildara’s giant air-whips, born from his fury. Now, the Golems stopped and simply looked at him with their glowing sensors, not even bothering to tint them an alarming crimson. Strange, considering the destruction he had wrought. Ortahn could find only one explanation: the homunculi detect magic levels. Perhaps they are configured not to attack those who wield magic of a higher order. For there are few things in the world more pointless than attacking a high rank, even for a non-homunculus.

  "I’ve reached the level of higher magic", he thought, with greater detachment than all his predecessors, new high ranks. "Aunt gave me the foundation of pre-higher knowledge. And Esh-Faya… Esh added the missing elements with her endless 'whys' and paradoxical conclusions. She was no less a catalyst for me than I was for her." The thought of her pierced him more sharply than any physical pain. "But why did the library homunculi attack the Nephilim? A malfunction, or..."

  The corridor led him to the Pit. In its center, Yaron was pacing in a nervous circle like a caged animal. Seeing Ortahn, his face registered surprise.

  “Yaron?” Ortahn said impassively.

  “How did they not take you, fat-walker?” Yaron asked. Disappointment oozed from him, like grease from a roasted fat-walker.

  “You summoned the Law,” Ortahn stated, wasting no time on rhetoric. “You knew we were leaving the Scar. My mistake. I shouldn't have underestimated your abilities, or the abilities of your shadow-mancer, Samar.”

  Yaron's disappointment gave way to resentment. A deep, childish, and long-festering resentment.

  “Yes! You know, Ortahn… it's not fair. It’s not fair! All of this!” His voice trembled. “Everyone looks at you, everyone talks about you. Especially that Zazaran girl! And Tulila… Tulila takes you seriously. She hasn't even hit you once! But me? Nobody takes me seriously! NOBODY! It’s like I’m… I’m a jester! An entertainer! A fool!”

  “But you are a jester and a fool,” Ortahn stated, without any malice.

  This fact detonated Yaron more effectively than any combat spell.

  “WOULD A JESTER DO THIS?!” he roared, and his roar shook the walls of the Pit.

  Yaron’s muscles swelled hideously into lilac-colored mounds, tearing his upper clothing. His skin burst under the internal pressure, covering him in bloody cracks. His veins blackened, bulged, and became like steel cables. A true adept of “male” magic had revealed himself.

  “IS A FOOL CAPABLE OF THIS?!” Yaron’s voice was distorted beyond recognition, becoming almost demonic.

  The grotesque brute turned into a blur of speed, spinning in a whirlwind around Ortahn.

  “WOULD A FOOL SUMMON THE LAW AGAINST HIS ENEMY!?”

  The air howled. Vibrations ran through the floor, the bones, the air. The metal walls began to crumple where Yaron's body brushed them in passing. The chain-spells on them sparked and died, unable to withstand the deformations. The membrane overhead burst with a pop, and the true light of Solara flooded into the Pit. In this fit of uncontrolled rage, Yaron possessed the strength to break free from the Scar.

  “WOULD A FOOL SURPASS THE LIMITS OF ENHANCEMENT!?”

  Ortahn remained unperturbed. He stood like a rock in the center of a tsunami. When the blur of fury drew close, he simply struck. The movement of his hand was simple and inevitable, like a falling stone. A downward blow. Instead of augmenting, he focused and contracted the power. All of it—his understanding of magic, his emotions, his fatigue, and the clarity granted by pain and loss—concentrated into a single point: Ortahn's fist, clenched to infinite density.

  The crash was deafening. Yaron wheezed as he was imprinted into the floor, leaving a deep dent in the metal and ripples spreading from the epicenter, as if he had half-sunk into wet wax. His bloated body began to shrivel rapidly, returning to a size far more pathetic than his usual form.

  Ortahn leaned over him and checked the pulse on his neck with two fingers. Yaron had lost what little scraps of consciousness he possessed, but he was alive. His bloodied face was frozen in shock, mouth open in a soundless scream, eyes rolled back.

  “That’s enough from you, Yaron” Ortahn said quietly, straightening up. “The lesson is over, student.”

  But the silence did not last long.

  “It’s true what they say: if you want a job botched, assign it to a man,” came an imperious female voice from the darkness of the corridor.