Vilnesh landed roughly on the corpse of some unidentifiable monster splattered across the stone flooring of the Diregate cavern, and he looked disgustedly at the blood and offal that covered his feet. Looking around, he could see that the others with him were also appearing quite annoyed at the current circumstances, as none of them had expected the half-breed to suddenly have something that could cut off their flying capabilities all at once, and attempts to reinstate the spell had failed.

  “What happened?” he heard coming from Mardell, who appeared to be less annoyed than the others, at least according to his tone of voice. In fact, he seemed more curious as to how this whole thing could’ve come about than about being forced to wade through the disgusting offal beneath their feet.

  “It’s one of those blasted Fusions,” Vilnesh replied, hating that his offspring had somehow gotten the jump on him and the others again. Yet, there was a little kernel of pride somewhere deep down, too, as it seemed to prove that the fruit from his loins was so powerful that it reflected his own strength. “That’s not important, though, because it’s only a matter of time before he’s killed by—”

  “Think again,” Dwillep interrupted him, which just added to the annoyance mounting inside of Vilnesh. “Aparnetha, Queen of the Abyssal Reaches, is getting her ass handed to her.”

  Vilnesh whipped toward the ongoing fight between his spawn and the monster that the Grand One had somehow contracted to kill him, and he discovered that Dwillep was correct. Whatever it was that the Fusionist had done, it had made her significantly weaker, and he could tell that it was only a matter of time before she fell. Did the Grand One make an error—no, of course not. That is impossible. It’s just that my son is much stronger than expected, which just means that it’s up to me to handle him.

  “No matter, we’ll just eliminate him ourselves—”

  “I don’t know if you noticed, but I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” Dwillep cut him off again. The subtle hint of fear in his voice was new, though, and he looked at his fellow Great One with disdain.

  “Nonsense. Once Aparnetha is dead, we’ll be free to kill—”

  “Watch out!” Mardell shouted from the rear, and Vilnesh turned to see a bunch of slaves running toward them, their pitiful weapons unsheathed as they ran toward their doom. He began casting a spell that would detonate an explosion in the middle of the pathetic fools…

  …but nothing happened. As he tried again, he quickly deduced that his Mana was somehow stuck inside of his body and wouldn’t move; it was as if it was frozen in place. The same went with his Stama; there was an outside force affecting it, which should’ve been impossible, but he couldn’t deny the proof even as he attempted to force it to move. It was only then that he realized that he was also feeling extremely weak and his thoughts felt like they were muddled. A brief glance at his Status left him shocked, as his stats had been cut by a little over 80%!

  I… I haven’t been this weak in over 900 years. He glanced at his progeny and wondered, What did he do?

  There was no time to ponder that further as he took the Ebonblade off his shoulder, using it to block the attack from a slave that attempted to stick him with what appeared to be a puny dagger. The movement was a little more difficult than usual, as the sword – which was almost impossibly heavy by slave standards – was harder to maneuver in his hands because of his reduced Strength, but he managed it easily enough. His annoyance had erupted into full-blown rage at this point, however, as the audacity of a weak slave trying to hurt him made him lash out with his weapon, using a powerful slash to cut the wretch completely in half.

  Or that was what he expected to happen. Instead, the dark Ebonblade passed through the slave’s body, seeming to disappear for a split second as it passed through him, before coming out the other side completely whole. The Human that he’d unsuccessfully tried to kill appeared just as shocked as Vilnesh did, but that expression changed on the slave’s face soon enough. Instead, the vile trash had the audacity to smile at him.

  How dare—!

  Temporarily forgetting that he couldn’t cast any spells, he was stymied for long enough that the dagger-wielding man managed to get close enough to stick his blade through a gap in his armor, drawing a minor amount of blood as he was nicked for the first time in centuries during a battle with an individual person, and he reflexively backhanded the tiny man in the head – only for his hand to pass through his opponent as if he wasn’t even there.

  What is going on?

  Using his Magical Detection Skill, which had passed Level 100 at some point in the past but he hadn’t bothered to increase it much further than that threshold, he detected some sort of normally invisible effect surrounding the slave. It only took him a half-second to recognize it as some sort of void substance that was protecting every bit of the man, which made him wonder why it was still working when his own spells had been blocked. Looking at the flows of energy around him while still using his Skill, Vilnesh quickly discovered that all of the energy around him – and even inside of his body – had been forcibly frozen in place, with some external force keeping it from moving. The slave had a source of static energy, however, and it was coming from a medallion around his neck, which seemed to be able to produce this void stuff covering his body, but there was no further transfer of energy between them.

  As for where the source of this interference came from, it only took a glance at his spawn, who was even now finishing off the contracted demonic killer, to reveal the truth.

  How did he do this? This shouldn’t be possible for anyone but the Grand One.

  Regardless of the impossibility of it all, the truth of the matter was that for the first time since he could remember, Vilnesh and the other Great Ones were at a disadvantage. They couldn’t seem to hurt the slaves attempting to kill them, especially as they seemed to have their stats suppressed and their spells and Battle Arts stopped before they could even implement them. That didn’t mean that they were going to lose, however, as none of those attacking them had the experience and martial prowess of a Great One, no matter how invulnerable they seemed to be. There had to be a way to exploit the protections on them; it was only a matter of time before they figured it out.

  But the most obvious solution was to destroy whatever Fusion his son was using to cause this all to happen.

  Even as he had the thought, their numbers were assaulted by yet another large group of slaves, this time coming from the other direction. Soon, Vilnesh was forced to dodge or deflect one attack after another coming from 3 different pests; none of them even got close to matching his speed, however, nor did they actually strike him again. He might not be invulnerable like them, but there was no way they could actually harm him seriously, even if they could hit him anywhere. The previous stab from when his attention slipped with the first man had already healed and was no more than drying blood on his skin by this point.

  Of course, he also counterattacked as quickly and as much as possible, looking for some way to overwhelm or perhaps exhaust whatever was keeping them safe from his own attacks, but nothing seemed to work. That was until his sword slammed into the same dagger-wielding hand that had stabbed him before, but this time his own weapon hit the man’s hand, cutting through the dagger’s hilt and his wrist at the same time. After he had amputated the man’s hand and listened to his screams, Vilnesh thought he had finally found a vulnerability: It seemed that in order to be able to physically attack with a weapon, the hand wielding it was less protected than the rest of the body. Granted, it was only a small vulnerability, but it was a start.

  Looking around, he shouted, “Go for the hands!” and the other Great Ones evidently heard him, because that was exactly what they proceeded to do. Within seconds, he heard another dozen screams of pain as slaves suddenly lost the hands they were attacking with, causing Vilnesh to smile with glee at how they were showing how, even with their near-invulnerability, these fools were no match for them.

  As he dodged yet another obvious attack by one of the slaves trying to stab him, he looked up to see how easy it would be to get past this trash to get to his son, but the Fusionist was gone. It wasn’t until he heard another, more powerful, scream from behind him that he realized it hadn’t come from one of the slaves they were fighting. Jumping back from a swipe of a sword at his knees, he glanced back to see Mardell on his knees, his stomach half-missing as it had been hacked apart, before he witnessed his head popping off when his neck was cut clean through. Looking up at the one wielding the halberd that did the deed, Mardell’s death slammed into him as he stared into the eye of his spawn, the wounded and blood-covered face and destroyed eye only making him more intimidating than before. He needs to die. Now.

  “Get him!” Vilnesh shouted, ignoring the sword poke stabbing into his back, deeper than the dagger cut, but still not overly concerning. He could feel it already knitting up as he left behind the two attackers still trying to hurt him, as he converged on his son, along with every other Great One nearby. They had, just as he did, obviously discovered that the Fusionist was the source of their weakness right then, so killing him and getting rid of the Fusion was their way out of this mess.

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  If anything, the fact that the Great Ones were now focused on the half-breed seemed to encourage the other slaves to redouble their attacks, even going so far as to bodily throw themselves in the way. Even though he knew it wasn’t going to work, he attempted to use his Dominion magic on them with the idea to control them long enough so that they moved out of the way, but all it did was make them pause for a half-second before they continued as they were.

  Thankfully, that was more than enough time for Vilnesh and the other Great Ones to converge on the Fusionist, though that didn’t seem to do all that much, given the fact that when Dwillep and Argenia tried to strike him, he had the same sort of void protection as the slaves. It was only when three of them got close enough to strike at the same time, from different directions, that something actually got through.

  Dwillep had managed to stab him with a spear after two other attacks by Argenia and Olinx were completely ineffective, though the attack was ultimately stopped by whatever clothing his son was wearing. Even though the tip of the spear didn’t penetrate the fabric, the impact still made the half-breed stumble backwards from the force of it, even as he fended off a fourth attack.

  Just like the others, he’s not invulnerable.

  Encouraged by this, Vilnesh watched as a half-dozen Great Ones surrounded his spawn, while he and the others fended off those he’d come with as they attempted to break through and get to him. It was actually harder than expected, as the void-covered slaves attacked in a frenzy, using the fact that hey were nearly invulnerable to get close to them so that they could strike, and the pressure as they pushed them toward the fighters in the middle of the group was enough to make dodging every attack much more difficult than when they were all defending themselves on their own. Vilnesh actually took a few additional wounds during this time, though all of them were largely superficial.

  It was then that he heard the laughter.

  While he’d never actually heard his son speak before, he knew it was him the moment he heard his laughter. It was one of amusement, which seemed strange considering that he was surrounded by superior fighters, but Vilnesh thought it had to be that the half-breed recognized when he was beat and that the laughs were actually despairing more than amusement.

  He couldn’t have been more wrong.

  “Is this all you’ve got? You Gergasi rely so much on your stats and spells that you can barely put up a fight.”

  The sound of a halberd whipping through the air so fast that it nearly sounded like a whipcrack punctuated his ridiculous statement, but Vilnesh quickly felt the death of yet another Great One. It happened so quickly that he accidentally let another attack from a slave through, which cut his upper thigh, but he ignored it as he tried to determine who had died—

  One spiritual impact after another hit him as 4 more Great Ones died in rapid succession, staggering Vilnesh and the others as their deaths affected them greatly, especially coming so close together. He felt another couple of sharp impacts against his body but ignored them as he moved away from the slaves attacking him, looking through the gathered Great Ones to see 5 bodies on the ground, each of them beheaded, just as Mardell had been. Even as he caught a glimpse of the half-breed, the Fusionist was splitting Olinx in half from shoulder to opposite hip, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  The death of Olinx seemed to hit Larek’s father even harder and he stumbled, nearly falling, but it was just the start of the torture that was to come. Vilnesh turned out to be one of the only ones to recover from such an abrupt series of deaths, and he was forced to watch as more than a dozen other Great Ones were piled on by the slaves attacking them. Once they started to get the upper hand, it was almost impossible to get them off. He attempted to knock off one wielding a flanged mace who was on top of Linfit, but his blows simply went straight through the man, and his aim was off enough that he missed the filth’s hand. The first blow against Linfit wasn’t strong enough to do much other than tear the Great One’s skin a little, but the subsequent blows delivered in a staccato of impacts quickly cracked his skull to the point where he would need extensive healing.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to get it, as an arrow shot from somewhere he couldn’t see shot into Linfit’s cracked skull, piercing through his brain, killing him instantly.

  The deaths kept coming; and soon enough, Vilnesh grew numb to them, roaring out in anger and anguish as his fellow Great Ones were slaughtered by the vile slaves who dared to fight against them. It all became too much for him and he went berserk, slashing with all of his strength and speed toward any target he could, attempting to hit at least one of them significantly enough to deal some damage. Blinded by his rage, he tripped over the corpse of someone he’d known for over 1,000 years, and he nearly fell on his sword in the process. Thankfully, he was able to roll to his feet, and when he swung his sword around behind himself, he finally felt it hit something – and his weapon suddenly felt much lighter than it had been just a moment before.

  Staring at his Ebonblade, a weapon he’d had for hundreds of years and which had never failed him before, he found that it had been sheared off with a perfectly clean cut a foot from the hilt, and the rest of the blade was now lying over the body of Olinx, completely detached from where it should be. The sight was so incomprehensible that it took Vilnesh a few seconds to register what had happened – and then he looked around.

  Every single other Great One he had come there with, which was all that remained other than the Grand One still in the Enclave, was dead. The gaping wound of their deaths pulsed throughout his mind and body, and he began to feel hollow inside. When he finally turned his attention back to his now-shortened sword, he saw his spawn looking back at him from no more than 8 feet away, his halberd held in position, the gleaming blade on the weapon the obvious culprit as to what had happened to his Ebonblade.

  The loss of his weapon, the loss of his fellow Great Ones, and the loss of all the plans that they had worked so hard to achieve over the centuries boiled up inside of him, and the anger erupted in an incredibly powerful roar that felt like it was rupturing his very soul.

  “Where are they? Where is my family?” he heard his son demand, but Vilnesh was too far gone to answer. He pulled at the energy within him, forcing the Mana inside to obey his will, and he suddenly felt a tearing as whatever the half-breed had done was essentially ripped apart. His spawn staggered backward, reaching into his pocket in shock, but all that Vilnesh could see was his way to get revenge. Forming a spell so powerful that the Grand One had forbidden its use centuries ago, as it could damage the fabric of the world again, creating an even larger breach than the one already in existence, he focused it on a point right in front of his traitorous son.

  “Stop! What are you—?” he vaguely heard his spawn ask, but he was too intent on his spell to care. Putting up a barrier that wouldn’t let anything through it, he was as safe from whatever he chose to do, anyway.

  If his progeny wanted to kill Vilnesh’s family, he would gladly reciprocate. Of course, his spell would kill everyone within a 50 mile radius, including everyone in the capital and the slaves in the Enclave, but he didn’t care anymore. The Grand One would survive, because he was unkillable, and that was all that really mattered at this point.

  “Run! I don’t know what he’s doing, but you won’t survive it if you’re too close!”

  Again, he ignored the shouts, as no matter how fast anyone fled, they wouldn’t be able to escape what he was doing. Pushing more and more Mana into the spell, Vilnesh only had eyes for what it was creating – so he missed it when the half-breed suddenly wound up behind him. The first indication he had that something was wrong was when he felt something somehow pierce through his Solid Barrier spell, but he couldn’t move from where his spell was starting to complete; if he did, it could backfire and end up killing him instead.

  Instead of a knife in the back of his neck, which was what he was expecting, something else touched the back of his head. A few seconds after he felt the skin go numb, a mental barrier slammed into his mind, and he nearly lost control of his spell.

  Memories of the last thousand years suddenly flooded through his thoughts, all of them tainted as something that revealed itself as a veil was lifted from over his mind. Horror spread through him as he now realized that he and every other Great One—no, Gergasi—had been tricked from the very beginning.

  They weren’t the rulers of the Kingdom; they hadn’t even ruled over themselves. Instead, something had come through the Breach and infected Granfelda, turning them into something that had tricked the rest of the Gergasi as they fell under their spell. Granfelda then started calling themselves the Grand One, a being that was neither male nor female, as they had lost any sign of being a normal Gergasi at that point. They had used a superior form of Dominion magic to control Vilnesh and the others for over 1,000 years – and he remembered every second of it.

  Tears ran down his face as the truth slammed into him, bringing him to his knees. At that point, he was seconds away from completing his spell and wondered if he could even go through with it.

  With his Solid Barrier shattered, his attention was distracted enough for a foreign influence to reach into his Mana stream and sever its connection to the ongoing spell. As he looked up, he saw his son staring down at him, a look of rage and hatred on his face.

  “I’m going to ask one more time. Where. Is. My. Family?”

  It took Vilnesh a second to respond. “They’re in the Enclave, in my office. But the Grand One” – he couldn’t help but call that thing by the now-hated name even now – “could have moved them by now.” As he felt the spell just seconds away from being completed, he hung his head. “For what it’s worth, I’m… sorry.”

  And he really was. He wished that he had been able to get to know his own son better, to not have been on opposite sides in conflict, and to have been there for him when he was just learning about his heritage. But none of that was going to happen—

  “You are NOT forgiven.”

  Shocked at the response, things after that happened too fast for him to make sense of it. The spell he had been forming in front of him, a complicated pattern designed to annihilate everything within a massive area, was suddenly ripped away from him as a round steel sphere was shoved into his mouth. The next thing he knew, an extremely powerful kick to his chest shattered his ribs, but it also forced him to involuntarily try to swallow the steel sphere, which suddenly swelled inside of his body.

  Vilnesh immediately knew what it was, as he’d seen his son holding it as he shut down all energy movement earlier. However, it seemed as though something was wrong with the Fusion, and even as it got lodged in his throat, it started to destabilize.

  Rocketing away from where his spell was about to detonate, he watched as his half-breed progeny activated another Fusion and dropped it in the middle of Vilnesh’s spell pattern. Suddenly, all of the Mana that had been building up in it was sucked into the activated Fusion, where it expanded at an incredible pace, swallowing up every bit of energy within its range.

  But that didn’t really make much difference to Vilnesh, as he flew backwards from his son’s kick, until he felt himself approaching the Diregate. Even as he approached, he felt the steel sphere containing a Fusion begin to rupture, and he spread his arms wide as he impacted the field of the enormous Scission, which vaporized half of his body before the Fusion inside of his throat exploded.