Hiral had managed to shield the portal and his friends from the destructive release of summoning his new weapon. Amin Thett, not so much. Because his form had been tied to the time-stopping domain around the party, he had been shredded like wet paper in a storm.

  Speaking of the storm, even that had been blasted back by the sword, with the group now standing in a pillar of faint light, from where the clouds high above had been opened up. Even now, the sword’s power—and maybe a hint of Yanily’s—kept the sky directly above them, and for about a mile, completely cloud free. Through the break, weak light shone down in a column from a white orb in the heavens.

  “I hope we didn’t need that temple for something,” Seeyela mumbled, though her eyes were locked on the weapon in Hiral’s hands.

  Now fully formed and solid, the sword stood longer than Hiral was tall, edges lined in liquid holy fire, a stark contrast to the infinite black making up the core of the blade. The Edicts within still pulsed with might, warning the world of the power they—and in turn, Hiral—would wield if something were stupid enough to get in his way.

  “I have recorded images of the temple’s internal structure and layout,” the PIMP construct reported, while it too looked at Hiral’s sword. Nobody, in fact, seemed able to look away from it.

  It was both beautiful and terrible.

  “That’s really an ability now?” Yanily asked.

  “Functions as one,” Hiral said, lowering the blade so he wasn’t quite holding it up on display anymore. With each small movement, it left lines of black energy behind it for a heartbeat, like part of the air had been scrubbed away. There was of course the same black lightning surrounding the blade, and white flames lining the edges, giving the thing an air of being a work of art. “But I incorporated Amin Thett’s work and the old sword’s power into it. It’s really the best of both worlds. And, based on how easy it was—and how the sword seemed to be getting shorter and shorter each time I completed part of the sword’s quest—I suspect something like this was his end goal anyway.

  “He was going to reward me with an ability-like way to use the sword.”

  “And you stole the chance out from under him—and made it better—while chatting with him,” Seena said.

  “Using the runes has gotten a lot easier with practice,” Hiral said. “And S-Rank.”

  “Is that going to be enough to stop the Raze?” Romin asked, pointing at the Seeker’s Unmaking.

  “As much as I’d love to think it would be,” Hiral said. “I doubt it’ll be enough on its own, if they’re really as powerful as Amin Thett and Tomorrow claimed.”

  “They are,” Li’l Ur said. “They are.”

  “Then, since somebody just sent up a giant signal shouting out to the world, ‘hey, here we are’,” Seeyela said. “Maybe we should move from the very obvious column of moonlight we’re standing in, to—just a suggestion here—somewhere a bit more hidden.”

  “That’s not a moon,” Laseen said.

  “Huh?” More than one person had the same reaction, their heads tilting back while Hiral dismissed the sword. It didn’t really cost him anything to keep out, but there was a time and place for everything.

  “That’s a sun,” Laseen continued. “And, unless I’m seeing things wrong—and the rest of the sky around it isn’t as blank as I think it is—it kind of looks like the only sun. The last sun.”

  With his higher Atn, Hiral immediately caught on to what Laseen was saying. The sky above the open clouds was dark, like it was nighttime, but that was definitely a white sun up there. Beyond it, though, in that night sky, was… nothing. Nothing at all. No stars. No twinkles of light.

  It was like the space Tomorrow had introduced them to was utterly empty.

  Or dead.

  “Where in the hells are we?” Seena said quietly.

  “Something we may need to figure out,” Hiral said. “Now that the time-stop is over, I’m sure the poisoning plan won’t work. This world has plenty of runic energy, though it’s different from what’s coming out of the Genesis portal. It’s less pure. Less refined?”

  “Does that do anything for us?” Seeyela said, still staring up at the white sun. “And, do you feel the gravity from that thing? It’s insane. How is it not ripping us right off the ground? I feel like I could take a jump and never come back down.

  “I… oh.”

  “What’s ‘oh’?” Seena asked.

  “I just got an advanced class option!”

  “Reeeeeeeally?” Yanily said, his voice rising in excitement.

  “Really,” Seeyela said.

  “Is the name any more flattering than your last one,” Laseen said with a cackle.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “It’s…” Seeyela said. “A little… sad. It’s called Daughter of the Last Sentinel. There’s some flavor text about that being the last sun holding back the dark.”

  “That’s as ominous as it is sad,” Seena said. “I hate to ask, but can you wait to take it until we change locations? If you’re going to take it, that is.”

  “Definitely,” Seeyela said. “I need to read through what it’s offering.”

  “Great,” Seena said, then spoke a little differently. “Nivian? Ilrolik? Can either of you two hear me?”

  “Surprisingly, yes,” Ilrolik said. “The Black Gate didn’t eat us. But…”

  “It looks like a dungeon portal from this side,” Sera said.

  “Here as well,” Nivian said. “We are also in some kind of building. I’d almost call it a temple.”

  “Ditto,” Loan said. “Not a really fancy one, but temple is the best way to describe it.”

  “What do we need to do to start poisoning the Raze?” Ilrolik said. “No squids or anything here at the moment, but I don’t expect our luck to hold out long.”

  “Our luck got left back on Genesis,” Laseen said with a cackle.

  “Poisoning isn’t going to work,” Hiral said. “We’ve got a lot to tell you both, but first we need to get somewhere a little more secluded. Give us a few minutes to relocate. Can you,” Hiral turned his attention to the PIMP construct, “or one of the other versions of you start what you need to do to connect to this world? It might not work as planned, but maybe it’ll tell us something about where we are, or give us other options.”

  “One of my other versions is already beginning the process,” the construct said.

  “Okay, then let’s see about finding somewhere less out in the open,” Hiral said, reaching out with his scarves to grab the others. “I’m just going to pick a direction and go, unless anybody has any better ideas?”

  When none of them did, Hiral did exactly that, launching off with his S-Rank speed. Within the blink of an eye, he was back within the falling rain. After another, the faint light of the white sun was little more than a memory. A third blink, and then he slowed, something in the distance catching his attention.

  A small change of direction, and only a few seconds later, Hiral found the ruins of what had to have once been some kind of highway.

  “A road?” Seena said, the scarf holding her above the broken stone of ages past lying just beneath an inch or so of water.

  “Huh,” Yanily said. “Anybody else feel like we’ve had this conversation before?”

  “Hold that thought,” Hiral said, flashing across the landscape with the road below him, water practically evaporating at the speed of his passing, before he slowed down again. Ahead of them, walls worn low by the untold passing of seasons surrounded the ruins of an ancient town. Not a city by any stretch of the imagination, the community had likely held a few hundred, to maybe a few thousand—at most—by the remnants of the buildings the party could see.

  Most of the structures were little more than a single wall on one end of a relatively square space. Nature had aggressively pushed its way back into the territory, but it hadn’t completely reclaimed everything. At least a dozen buildings of thick stone had managed to survive the passage of time, the heavy rains even now splashing uselessly against their sides. If nothing else, it would be a roof over the party’s heads.

  “There’s that déjà vu again…” Yanily mumbled, and by the look on some of the others’ faces, he wasn’t the only one feeling it.

  “This place safe?” Romin said.

  “We’re S-Rank kiddo,” Laseen said. “The better question is whether or not it’s safe for anybody looking to steal our lunch money in a dark alley.”

  “I worry about the life you led before you met us,” Romin said simply.

  Laseen let out a low cackle, but didn’t respond.

  “Hiral,” Left said quietly, a hint of warning in his voice.

  “I know,” Hiral said. “But I don’t know what it means.”

  “You know what?” Seena asked.

  “I’ll explain in a second,” Hiral said. “I found a place that’s big enough for all of us.” Then he was gone again, the spot he’d been hovering above empty save for the rippling of water, to reappear with the others in front of the double-doors of some kind of large hall. The doors were a bit taller than was necessary for them, and the ornate metal had survived as well as the stone. They were also wide enough Wallop could’ve walked in at full size.

  “In we go,” Hiral said, using Attraction to gently pull the doors open without touching them. Beyond the now-open doors, the great hall of the building sat mostly dry, with only some parts of the floor reclaimed by plant-life. There was a small tree growing near a back window, but it was a stunted and twisted thing, and the few leaves it had hung heavy, like it was taking everything for the tree just to maintain them.

  As soon as the group was inside and the doors closed, they spread out to make sure there weren’t any threats—though Hiral had already checked with his sensory domain—then converged back near the middle again.

  “These aren’t human seats,” Laseen said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this is all Squalian.”

  “You’d be correct,” Hiral said. Before he got to say more, though, the raid chat came to life again.

  “Uh, guys,” Wule said. “We found something real strange when we stepped outside of the temple.”

  “Can it wait, Wule?” Seena said, eyes still on Hiral like she was expecting an answer to what he’d said earlier.

  “I… I don’t think it can,” Wule pressed.

  “Wule isn’t exaggerating,” Nivian said. “We found The Horns.”

  “The horns of what?” Seena asked.

  “The Horns,” Nivian emphasized. “As in the twin peaks on either side of the EnSath River.”

  “That… can’t be right, can it?” Seena said. “You must’ve just spotted something that looks… the… same…” she trailed off, her mind likely going back to the road, and the town she stood within right now.

  “Just to add to the mystery,” Devison said into the raid chat. “Ilrolik asked me to poke around, and I had to go pretty far up through a very large tunnel to get to the surface. And, you know what I found?

  “A mountain with a crescent-shaped peak. What in the nine hells is going on?”

  “It’s the same thing here,” Hiral said. “This is… this is the same town where the Enemy first attacked us. Where Lonil was killed.”

  That finally pulled Seeyela’s attention from the advanced class window she’d likely been wrapped up in. “What?” she said. “How could we be there? We went through the Black Gate, it told me we were…” Seeyela trailed off, her eyes widening.

  “I don’t know how the Raze did it,” Hiral said. “But, we’re still—back?—on Genesis.”

  “Is this another dungeon?” Romin asked.

  “Boy, can you tell?” Laseen pressed him.

  “I couldn’t even tell we were in one before,” Hiral pointed out.

  “Then what’s this?” Wule said. “Another version of Genesis or something? How many are there?”

  “Just one,” Seeyela said. “I understand what the Black Gate was trying to tell me before we crossed over. This isn’t Genesis. Not anymore. It was, once.”

  “What are you saying?” Seena said to her sister.

  “The Black Gates straddle time,” Seeyela said. “They exist in all times at the same time. Stepping through one doesn’t necessarily mean you change where you are, you could also change when you are. It’s how the Progenitors came and went from different times.

  “Somehow, the Raze locked the old Genesis inside a dungeon, then looped it over and over, while they lived here.”

  “So we are on Genesis?” Laseen said.

  Seeyela shook her head again. “If Genesis is the beginning of all things, this is… the end.

  “This is the Terminus.”

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