“We don’t have a choice,” Left reminded him. “Either the Heart gets destroyed, or we can’t get Genesis out of its dungeon.”

  “I know,” Hiral said, already flashing in the direction of the now-unguarded Heart of the City. Much like what he’d seen in the dungeon, The Final Sunrise, the large, egg-shaped device hovered in the middle of the room. Nothing held it up, though Hiral could see six powerful lines of connection rising and vanishing into the ceiling above. Oddly enough, those were only six of the many, and Hiral had to look down.

  More threads led from the Heart into the floor, before hundreds of them rose back out. There were, of course, even threads connected to Hiral and Left.

  “Sorry for the delay,” Hiral said into the raid chat. “I’m at the Heart of the City now.”

  “What took so long?” Seeyela said, though there was more worry than venom in her voice.

  “Remember the crocobastard Abomination? There was something similar to it here waiting for me,” Hiral said.

  “Need help?” Seena said.

  “He said there was something waiting for him,” Yanily said. “He already took care of it.”

  “I did,” Hiral said. “And I learned something I need to warn you about before I shut down the Heart.”

  “Wonderful,” Wule said.

  “When I separated the crocobastard from whatever is resetting it, it got stronger,” Hiral said. “Not by a small amount, either. And, it seemed to gain access to abilities it didn’t have while it was connected.”

  “It stopped resetting?” Ilrolik said.

  “Yes,” Hiral said.

  “Meaning they’ll power up,” Yanily said. “And we can finally kill them for good. Fair trade. Scramble that egg.”

  “Last chance for any objections,” Hiral said.

  “You’re the raid leader,” Seena said. “Make the choice.”

  “Then I’m going to—as Yan said—scramble this egg,” Hiral said. “Last time it took me a couple of minutes. I expect it to be faster this time. Be ready for the bump in strength.”

  “We’re ready,” Nivian said.

  “Here we go,” Hiral said, putting his hands on the same interface section of the Heart of the City as he’d used in the dungeon. Nearby, Left stood watch, just in case anything wanted to use his moment of distraction to its advantage.

  Just like last time, Hiral found the twelve-by-twelve matrix of numbers that served as a passcode to access the functions of the Heart. This time, though, there was something different. With his significantly better energy control, he could feel the passcode was cycling through different variations. Every three seconds or so, the code would shift, kernels of energy changing places within and behind the passcode wall. From their placement, choosing a wrong number would create a plug in that slot, preventing access to the system until it naturally degraded. With the density of those energy nuggets, the blockage would likely last hours.

  Not that it was a challenge to Hiral, his Runes of Time Contraction and Time Dilation spooling into action. Except… they didn’t do anything. Time neither sped up nor slowed down.

  A new defensive measure in the Heart?

  Having a little trouble believing the object in front of him—powerful as it was—could really stand up to two Edicts, Hiral tried again. Once more, nothing happened. A big part of him was wildly curious about what was going on, and he had a few more ideas he could try, but an earthshaking explosion above reminding him he was on a bit of a timer. It wasn’t just about his friends fighting the Raze, but also the time the Black Gates would need to shake off their lethargy so they could let Genesis go.

  Edicts of time shenanigans out the window, Hiral would need to fall back a secondary plan. Or, more accurately, a rule.

  Rule six, to be precise. Nothing else matters in the face of overwhelming power.

  Hiral would just brute force it.

  With S-Rank power, his absurd amount of Atn, the Edicts—most of them, at least—working at his side, and his solar energy parameters, a randomized twelve-by-twelve passcode, alternating every three seconds, was hardly a problem. One change, two, three, four, and he had the pattern of it down. As soon as the fifth variation started, Hiral punched in the energy-code, opening the matrix like a welcoming door.

  As soon as he was in, he followed the same channels he had in the past, finding—just like in the dungeon—a crystal with Connection embedded within it. Back in The Final Sunrise, Hiral had used that Rune of Connection to change who benefitted from the powerful buff provided by the Heart of the City. And, yes, while he could do the same thing here, he could feel the mind-altering effects of the six energy tendrils reaching up to the Raze. The euphoric result of those connections wasn’t something he could remove—at least not easily—and the party did not need to go on a drug-induced journey right now.

  So, what was Hiral going to do? The connections from the Heart had been in place so long, the channels for them were practically permanent. Simply shutting the thing off wouldn’t end the effect. Hells, even destroying it might not be enough, as now that he was in there, he could feel it had evolved beyond the physical to become a concept.

  Much like Nivian’s ‘I protect’, the Heart of the City and the Raze had formed such a bond, it was practically part of the world’s rules. Meaning somebody needed to rewrite those rules.

  If only there was somebody around with experience using the runic equations and script that govern the rules of the universe. Oh, wait…

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  With Hiral’s mind inside the Heart of the City, Hundred Handed sprung from his back, and began their work of surrounding the egg-shaped device with new rules. These equations weren’t designed to take over or hijack the conduct of the established connections. No, they were for a much simpler purpose. They would imprint what Hiral was about to do inside the Heart as irrefutable. This would—hopefully—naturally flow into the existing rules.

  As for what Hiral was going to do inside the Heart, the answer was simple. One rune long, in fact. If the Heart of the City functioned entirely around Connection, it only made sense the best way to counter it would be its opposite.

  With a wave of his metaphysical hand, Hiral replaced the Rune of Connection with the Rune of Separation. As soon as it was in place, Hiral pulled himself out of the Heart, while the runic equations he’d laid out glowed to life. From there, it started with a pulse of energy, then violently cascaded outward.

  To Hiral’s senses, it was like watching fuses burn in a hundred different directions all at the same time, the old rules established by the Heart getting rewritten in rapid succession with Separation at their core. It didn’t take more than the blink of an eye for the wildfire of rules to vanish into the ceiling and floor, and for the six processed connections of energy to vanish. How could they exist, when their purpose was separated?

  “It’s done,” Hiral said, warning the others. All that was left was to completely destroy the Heart of the City, confirm the Black Gates were free, then head up to the surface to help…

  “That Raze totally just reset,” Yanily said, his words grinding Hiral’s thoughts to a halt.

  “Those Endless did too,” Loan said. “I smashed their faces together hard enough they were basically one construct. Now they look like nothing happened.”

  “He’s not wrong,” Seena said. “And, is it just me, or are these weaker now?”

  “Not just you,” Finotol said. “The Raze are dying—and resetting—almost too easily.”

  “Be careful!” Nivian said. “They adapt when we kill them, and they reset. If they’re resetting more often, we might see them evolving into something we struggle with.”

  “Endless seem to be the same strength,” Devison said. “What in the Nine Hells is going on?”

  “Hiral?” Seena said. “You sure you shut down the Heart of the City?”

  “Absolutely sure,” Hiral said. “The connections from it are gone, and…” he trailed off, spotting the dozens of intangible tendrils reaching up from the floor beneath his feet. Ducking down to look under the Heart, none of the tendrils he’d seen there before stretched from the bottom of the egg.

  “And?” Seena prompted.

  “Remember how I said I felt like it didn’t make sense the Heart of the City had the ability to reset the Raze? There’s something else down here. With the Heart shut down, the Raze aren’t getting the buff from it—that’s why they’re weaker—but I see more connections coming from below me. I’m going to check them out. Hold on up there.”

  “Should I send The Pack looking for a way down?” Left said.

  “No, whatever it is, it’s right below us,” Hiral said.

  “Then how do you plan…?” Left started, but didn’t bother finishing his sentence, as Hiral took hold of his Edicts, and thrust them into the ground. Vibration and Piercing for the tip of the drill, a combination of Rejection and Attraction to give it spin, Gravity for weight, Energy to destroy the waste, Breaking for general usefulness in what he was doing, and Expansion mixed expertly with Compression to create the shape.

  Before the power of the runic drill—the twenty-foot-wide, runic drill—the stone had no chance, vanishing in sections three-feet deep per second. Because of the addition of Breaking to the mix, there wasn’t even dust getting thrown out of the hole as it grew. Down and down the drill went, the ground rumbling from the continued battle above.

  “What do you think is down there?” Left said, while the pair of them watched the expanding hole.

  “I have no idea what to expect,” Hiral admitted. “There wasn’t a secondary system in the dungeon. At least, not one that got brought to our attention.”

  “A bonus objective we missed?”

  “It’s possible, I guess,” Hiral said. “Though, I’m more tempted to believe this is either something purposely left out, or didn’t actually exist during that time during the Raze’s version of history.”

  “Something they added after?” Left said with a nod like he agreed with the answer to his own question. “We don’t have a way to deal with it like we did the Heart.”

  “No, but we’ll figure something out,” Hiral said, looking up from the drill to his double for a second. “Just like we always do.”

  “Just like we always do,” Left echoed.

  At the same time the double spoke, a massive tremor from above sent the entire tunnel system rocking, and the drill burrowed into a chamber deeper down. Loosened rubble rained from the ceiling, while cracks spread up and down along the worked stone. It was likely the tunnel system down here only survived the battle above this long because of the crystal coating everything up there. That protection wouldn’t last much longer with what Seena and the others were throwing around. That battle wasn’t Hiral’s problem—for the moment—and his eyes went to the newly carved tunnel down.

  “Let’s go find out what’s down there,” Hiral said, wings of blue flame bursting from Left’s shoulders at the same time.

  A nod of confirmation from his double, and the pair leapt into the hundred-foot hole, Left on Wings of Anella, while Hiral rode Rejection down. Natural stone stood almost immediately under the worked stone and continued all the way to a large cavern, easily a few hundred feet wide, and tall. Dome shaped, the walls looked smoothed out, though not manmade.

  Other than the hole Hiral had just punched into the ceiling of the large space, neither his eyes nor his sensory domain could detect an actual exit or entrance from the place. That didn’t mean nothing got in or out, though, with dozens of crystal columns and ropes. Some of them crawled down the outer walls, while others hung almost like thick vines. In different sizes and thicknesses, they weren’t even smooth, looking more like frozen flames. No two were exactly alike.

  One thing they all shared in common, though, was where they converged, a fifteen-foot tall, six-foot wide crystal sitting in the center of the chamber. And, from it—of course—came the metaphysical streamers reaching up through the roof to connect with the Raze and Endless.

  “That’s definitely what we’re looking for,” Hiral said, as he and Left glided down to the stone.

  “Any idea what it is yet?” Left said.

  “About to find out,” Hiral said, landing in front of the crystal. Unlike the other masses of crystal in the room, this one seemed to have an internal glow, making the facets shine like flames depending on the angle Hiral looked at it from. The amount of solar energy it gave off wasn’t huge—especially not compared to the reset ability it was imparting on things—but there was something else there. It wasn’t quite runic energy, though it was close.

  Familiar.

  Hiral knew this energy, and he strode up to the crystal, something in his gut dropping.

  It can’t be…

  Though his sensory domain couldn’t feel inside the crystal, his eyes told him everything he needed to know. This close, he could see the silhouette trapped inside the crystal, almost like a bug in amber. A silhouette, remarkably, with two meanings.

  The first of course, was of the man trapped in there. There was no mistaking that part. The second meaning, though, sent Hiral’s chest buzzing. No, it wasn’t something like his heart beating faster, or his breath catching in his lungs. No, it was the runes there coming alive in the presence of a higher-order version of themselves.

  “I found what’s causing the reset ability,” Hiral said. “I think it’s the… first version of me and the Edicts at my back I bonded with. The Raze trapped him in crystal down here. They trapped the Edict of Time.”

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