I still feel his blood on my hands. A goat-human who died under my protection. It wasn't important. He was just one of many soldiers I've seen die. An unknown of equally unknown fate. For them, a companion. For me, a stranger. Still, I never got used to it. Going on and on fighting so that his death would not be in vain was the modus operandi by which I managed to get up again and again whenever a fellow soldier died. Over time, however, even this feeling was lost to the naturalness with which the scythe reaps a soul. More prayers, more rites. More preparations. The processes of failing when you already know you will fail and giving news you know will come are always the same, again and again, again and again.

  Mesunde and Kirle are on a mission away from Solace. Magnus alters causality to redirect a blow and annihilates a giant octopus that disintegrates upon death.

  “Wander!” I hear my name and immediately step up to jump up to Zohaal, one of the teachers. He has a scar that covers his face and wears heavy black armor under a white cloak, raising his hand and conjuring from Dark Ash an iron wall to protect me and Kylashii from a fiery explosion.

  The dragon roars, its scales are formed by the mist, and its flames are purple like the sky. Zohaal grits his teeth to withstand the outsized heat, and I sneak in to apply my aura over the flames as soon as its temperature drops. The dark green mana consumes the flames as if they burn stronger, I maximize the emission and push it back against the gaseous throat that explodes into emerald. Sieghart had taught me how to apply the concept of death to my own aura, which proved useful when dealing with anything that might perish.

  Loreal, the middle-aged woman with short gray hair who wears blue, ionizes the air and uses the metal created by Zohaal's creation magic and the magnetism of the humanoid lizard Kylashii to channel lightning. They light up in the middle of the field and glow from purple to blue to pierce the horizon monsters that have surrounded the North, and Zohaal immediately moves on to the next point of interest.

  The Royal Guards—as we call the main threats of The Illusionist—have not yet arrived. They must prepare the ground and weaken us first, then we have to defend properly and find an opportunity to counterattack. I'll leave the strategy to Magnus, who defends us against the larger monsters, while the rest of the teachers simultaneously teach and guard the specific search parties. The North was defeated, and we advanced to it. I circle the field while paying attention to the commands of the surrounding sprinters. We would need to reach the mountains ahead and lure the monsters to the plain, to surround them with our own troops.

  We can win. If I keep protecting everyone, we can win. The steps slow down, and the teachers surround us. Edward arranges his glasses, his white cloak now red, and holds the hammer in front of his body as he reconsiders the race. Elias, the masked man in the black robe, emerges from the shadows and staggers back, unable to continue.

  They look up in horror. War never proceeds only with determination. Our mind has been too much for the skull to contain, and no being can completely suppress its depths. The islands are a trap that not only force you on a journey, but also the inescapable challenge you have to face when facing the abyss. And the abyss rises, the combination of our horrors stretching as wide as a mountain, a monster that was once banished by the mist now takes shape. Force of nature, of mind, ascends, coming from the sea, the piece of something hidden in the depths.

  Its shape is giant and mimics that of a human, but its face is empty. It has my left arm, cadaverous, Loreal's right arm, feminine and thin, Zohaal's breastplate, but with a hole in the place of the heart. Kylashii's lizard syrup, Edward's legs, and Magnus's black, torn cloak, with a glowing halo above his head.

  The priest inspires. We can win. Still, the number of deaths would be…

  “Come back!” Cloud says. His voice echoes along the shoreline and then zooms in on a figure next to Magnus. “Sieghart will not return!”

  “… What?” I say.

  “Sieghart found the Clown in the depths. I was right. He decided to jump inside to catch it. There must be someone trying to stop him, because he hasn't come back until now. In any case, he will not return now! We need to retreat and save forces for the onslaught of the enemy!”

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  “No.” Magnus says. “No more.”

  A presence.

  Behind us, even more powerful than the beast that closed our path, a simple man rises. His flesh is exposed, alive in vibrant red, and half of his skull is dead. He regenerates, but something prevents him from fully recovering. Like a tumor, it consumes his body, but is defeated by his will. Marduk had survived, wielding his bone sword and facing the group, wandering his gaze to see if he could find the desired battle. He does not find it, and then becomes enraged.

  We're dead.

  A group weakened by battle, now facing terror and war incarnate. Sieghart won't be back.

  “We will die.” Edward says.

  Magnus breathes in. “They feed on our fear. Go ahead, it will be your last enemies before Sieghart finds the clown, then we will defeat the Illusionist and go home.”

  “… What are you going to do?”

  Magnus maximizes the emission and advances towards Marduk. The Barbarian screams, and the encounter between his sword and the professor's hands makes the ground shake and sink.

  “NO! YOU WILL-”

  Soldier. I'm a soldier.

  I grit my teeth and follow orders. Zohaal leads the pack as Loreal transmutes her aura into kinetic energy to launch against the Titanic hand of the fear mob trying to crush us. Cloud holds Edward in one hand and Grielnas—the green-skinned elf—in the other to make them run. Kylashii propels himself upward, and I purposely stand back as I watch Magnus throw Marduk through a mound. Monsters that move fate through metamagic. I maximize the output and lift bones from the ground, pillars of support that cover from one side to the other the sky and penetrate the flesh of the creature to expand inside it. One of the speedsters grabs me and saves me from being crushed right away. The creature slams its hands into the sky and is barred by Iron, annihilates it with my magic and has its lightning redirected by Loreal. It creates light to cast out Elias shadows, and nullifies the area's magic with its own influence to cause Grielnas to return to human form and fall to the ground.

  Lights through the air. Roars across the sky. Again and again. Again and again.

  A soldier. I'm a soldier.

  I feel the accumulation of mana rise up the creature's neck in a black glow through the throat. He shoots, but the spell passes over us and-

  The professor, in his worst matchup against a creature that can ignore causality, spins just long enough to redirect the beam. His feet sink to the ground as metamagic modifies reality. Marduk does not advance. Seeing that the monster had taken his target, he becomes enraged and rushes t kill him for stealing his fight. He would have to kill us first, all of us. Not in an instant, but as long as the Beast distracted Magnus, we're exposed.

  It's fine.

  Sieghart will find the Clown and come to save us.

  Heh.

  I spit out a laugh.

  That will never happen.

  He is too worried about his fate to see how the lower beings who sacrifice themselves for him feel. I wouldn't even know what Joseph's face was if he wasn't a beast. It's not important. A pawn to be used for a greater purpose. If Edward's head is severed, I will be the one to have his blood on my hands. Another burial. Another prayer. Another ritual. Kylashii's mechanical arm would not revolutionize the technology of his native people. Edward would not prove that he can be a hero. Elijah would not redeem himself for his crimes. He does not know their stories, and a king without the courage to know the men he asks to die for him is an impostor who will not have my confidence.

  I stop. The group continues its advance. Spells on earth, blood in the air. A warrior rushes at me at supersonic speed, cutting through the air in a burst of pressure. Time seems to freeze as supernatural power is channeled through the body through the faculties of my mind. Beautiful. From the devastation of the flesh to the anxiety of the mind.

  Everything is equivalent in the face of death. No one else would suffer. That's my purpose. Yet, in the face of the terrible truth that comes down like rain on my head, I refuse to accept it. Their families will mourn in invisibility for an avoidable mistake that should not even have been brought to reality. They're wrong. They were useful, even if their king did not care for them. He'll suffer later, won't he?

  No. How could he? How can I ask for the punishment of someone like Sieghart, who holds the evils of the world on his back? Whose fault is it? Who is the enemy? Where does all the evil that is not properly justified go in this world? Should I wait for the divine unknown and follow with the same reality?

  Reality.

  I'm tired of reality.

  There's only one place for me.

  “Osteoflora.” I say, and the trees grow like thorns that reach to the heavens. Marduk is pierced, but his advance continues amid the bony forest that pierces his flesh. He screams and breaks them like wooden branches, but his advance is intercepted by my own. I decompose his body, rot his skin, and use the nefarious aura as a distraction to redirect his path as he chases me and uses his sword to try to impale me. His steps fail, but not because of weakness. Facing the oceanic abyss below him, Marduk falls, tricked into throwing himself over the cliff beside me in the Sea of Thoughts.