Iron chains held her against the rock. She tried to break them, but was unable to move. Her chest was heavy, tons of water pressed her body to the ground. When despair overcame her, she cried out for the help of those she defended and who swore to do the same for her. They did not hear her, her voice did not echo—and even if they did, they would not answer her. Tears were lost in the depths of an endless lake, water invaded her lungs, her organs collapsed, and her eyes closed; but she did not die.

  Hours, days, weeks. She fought until she could pluck her chains, master the depths, and make them her weapons of choice. Her heart hardened, and the possibility of stagnation in a court, of the disgrace her life would be if she returned to her own kingdom, made her plan revenge.

  And then he showed up. Sieghart. Me.

  White hair, black robes. Apathetic and red eyes. Powerful for a human, gifted for magic, and impressively, wielder of the Miracle of Chaos. The Demon King, reincarnated in the flesh, so much like the sister she loved so much.

  She thought about hating me, and for a while, she did. But she also always made sure that she stayed close. She perceived my loneliness, and sympathized with the child cursed to die for his own strength. She noticed how much I cared about her, and then she cared, too. Then, she decided that she would make the most powerful decision of her life, and that hate and love would go hand in hand; that she would not allow another tragedy to occur.

  She saved me. In a way, she saved the world.

  How can I not do the same for her?

  ***

  Radiant, the sapphire glow expands against the sugar. A tremor ripples across the ground, and mana ripples through the air like a shock wave. The knowledge that I once pursued to madness returns to me as if all the books in a library were crushed against my brain. I ignore the useless subjects, the morbid uses they have and the atrocities I have committed to obtain them; I focus only on following the steps that the soft voice whispers to me and shows me.

  Extend your hands. Morgana says.

  Let magic be your brush and make the world your canvas. The manifestation enhances your perception, feel with the tips of your fingers the different textures of the picture you paint; of the invisible layers that hide behind the orderly machination of the firmament.

  The material world is separated by cloths and veils. Infinite in quantity, but not in quality. It will decay to the dust from which it was created, but it will never equal the eternal that exists beyond its limitations—the whole deserves to be called “reality.”

  And, contrary to what I thought in my arrogant delusions, it is impossible to hurt It. I can destroy a mountain or a continent, but both are just dirt and debris. Reality is greater than mere matter and energy.

  I have the authority to paint the picture that composes it, but I cannot destroy it. I can twist your cloths and tear your curtains, but this will not affect the canvas. The spells I cast will offer me faster and more practical ways to use the ink, but they will be limited to using it.

  It is the Divine who sustains reality, and He does not kill himself. It would be illogical, after all, for the supreme power to be defective like mortals to do something inferior as contradicting itself. That is why, even using the absolute power of chaos and becoming a tiny co-participant of divine authority, I cannot tear the soul out of a poor fellow. Neither the arcane nor the miracle is illogical; only superior to the logic we know. The Creator does not break his rules, and I am not him either.

  What I am is a king, who will fulfill the destiny of using his authority to divide heaven from earth.

  And so I do.

  The world collapses. Mountains are swallowed by gastric acid; biscuits, corpses, and plants coalesce into cakes of raw biomass. Men and beasts fight for domination of the highest peaks, Wander raises walls of bones to stop the advance of the crowds, and Cloud pushes the greatest enemies down the hill. The skies roar, air muscles pulse through the clouds and change the atmosphere, and Nia stares at me, frightened.

  “Sieghart!” She says with watery eyes.

  The girl would drag my body to the top of the sugar pile, so I wouldn't be hurt by the monsters. I stand up, smiling and stroking her hair.

  “Hey! Where are you heading?!”

  Details emerge in chaotic harmony, information jumps from one place to another without worrying about my ability to understand them.

  “Save them.” I say.

  Sweat trickles down from the corner of my face, teeth chatter, spells are cast, and in the midst of it all, Morgana whispers.

  Her charming voice drowns out the other sounds and tells me about the dark sea from which the stars float. In particular, she teaches me about “space,” the concept of the infinite fabric that stretches across the cosmos and how we can use mass to affect it. Of course, I already knew that. But hearing the scientific terms about how to use gravity, acceleration and density to my advantage were obvious answers that I hadn't thought of yet.

  The fake sun illuminates my face; a hole in the sky solidifies the prison that distorts this very space to remove the concept of a way out. Monsters approach as my team rushes towards me, I hear the clink of iron chains clinging around a memory. Morgana shows me her pain, her drowning and collapsing lungs, anger, and desire for justice.

  Crimson aura rises from my shadow and clings to the team's waists. Fire consumes the air and propels me to the sky, I open my hand towards the hole and conjure.

  I conjure and see the innumerable possibilities of distortions, all useless. It is not the pre-existing characteristics of space that matter to me, but the concept of space itself. By affecting it with Chaos, new characteristics arise and others are erased. The lack of control influences, in that specific region, one of the factories of the firmament.

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  My body shakes, my organs sway. I feel my veins burn as chaos distorts the meaning of a concept. Using only arcane magic, he would have to fight Hilda's influence. The miraculous power of metamagic, however, has no rival: what prevents it from continuing Is Me.

  Doubts whisper in my ears, and with them delusions of grandeur; but only one could make me go beyond my limits.

  Come to me, Sieghart. Morgana says.

  Like the beating of a heart, the power pulses one last time and pierces through the hole like a spear pierces cloth. Maddening flames explode from the Inside out of the Mother Tree like an erupting volcano, replacing the insanity of the fairy world with my own.

  A cry of pain echoes through the air, shrill. The structure of the mother tree collapses as my senses lose potency. My nose bleeds, my skin ignores the sunlight, the Gates close and my vision blurs. Reaching the new level of power doesn't mean my mana has fully recovered. Using Metamagic in this way broke every limit my body had to protect itself. Voices are silenced, the claws of the Beyond rise to drag me into the world of nightmares;

  But they don't ever touch me, taped by that embrace me in a warm cold embrace. The taste of blood disappears, and although I remain pale, I feel my skin gain its color again. I open my eyes, recovering, and Morgana smiles calmly as we fly across the green sky.

  Black as night, her dress and sclera share the color. Her skin is blue as a sapphire and her pupils and hair as gleaming as silver. She wraps four arms around me, and despite the awkwardness of her new physical form, I return the gesture and squeeze as hard as I can.

  “I missed you too.” She says.

  We float as the team celebrates the fairy's arrival. The comfortable journey takes only a few seconds until we land on top of a hill and feel the earthquakes with our own feet. In my heart, I wished our crossing had been a little longer, but it's not time to daydream.

  Rising from the earth, the dragon bones I saw earlier at the entrance to Hilda's domain is pulled like a doll by the vegetation that has grown inside of him. The wood of the Mother Tree concentrates around the Beast and forms a new skin around it, solid as steel. Above her back, sprouting from a flower like a parasite, Hilda's giant bust stretches out, emerald and translucent. Her hair is vines, dead flowers cover her body, rotten and torn moth wings grow from her back.

  And on the other side of the valley, an army battles the monsters that sprout from it. Elves.

  They shout, marching towards the army surrounding the Queen. Terrified by the unthinkable creature in front of them, but still furious. Vanusians and other peoples unite in a show of colors, battling over the same flag to fight Hilda's beasts.

  I doubt Hoffstein stopped to gather an army, but I also know he is aware of what his presence causes. Fairies, beastmen, elven Warriors exhausted from tyranny gather not in an organized form, but in an improvised army, united only by the fact that they knew about the invaluable company of the hero; that he would march to destroy the tyranny of the usurper.

  As I realize the fury of the battle, I search for the hero, and so does Hilda. A hole still burns on the right side of your spleen where I came out. The Queen's scream becomes a groan, and then grunts of crystalline hatred. His senses are disoriented, his red eyes are blinded, the tyrant struggles against mere refracted and solid images of light that represent the Hero.

  So where does he-

  Something falls from the sky. Behind the group, a cloud of dust rises from the impact.

  “… Ah.” I say. “There you are.”

  The silhouette walks up to the group with a smile on its face. Golden pupils contrast with white hair. “Aye.” Hoffstein says, soothing the group with pats and greetings.

  Finally, he stares at me. “What Have you decided?”

  “… I'll be human.”

  “HA!” The Hero laughed, then hugged me until my bones crackled. I pushed him away to catch his breath, and he breathed in, relieved. “… Great. GREAT!”

  He laughed to himself again, then stayed in silence. “Unfortunately, our celebration will have to wait. I managed to temporarily blind and distract Hilda because of the injury you caused, but it won't last. We need to get organized.”

  “What happened to her?” Cloud says.

  “Hilda merged with the Mother Tree.” Morgana says. “In fact, I doubt that Hilda's health allows her to survive without the tree. That is only its true form.”

  “So all the power she absorbed these hundreds of years…?”

  “No. She would be much stronger if that was the case.” Hoffstein says. “However, I do not deny: some of the power that the Mother Tree absorbed increased Hilda's power. Our luck is that she is insane and can not use it fully. But the main function of the tree is to use the life and mana it has absorbed to give birth to her children… the army of monsters.”

  “There is another function, too.” Morgana says. “Resurrect our sister.”

  Wander and Nia face Morgana. “Our sister?” The brother says.

  Morgana shrugged.

  Hoffstein stared at me. “Do you confirm this?”

  “Yes. Something whispered to her, possessing the corpse of her sister. A demon who took advantage of the tyrant's weakened mind to make her believe that he could resurrect her if he had the necessary power. The second function of the tree is to try to do some kind of ritual…”

  Hoffstein nodded. “That's why he didn't kill you. He tried to turn you into mana, not knowing you could escape in time. She must be trying to create a new vessel for the demon to inhabit. I believe it is… No, it doesn't matter now. At the moment, Hilda's power is greater than mine, so we have two options: face her together to win, or win alone by using more of the prison's power. This second will not happen.”

  For good reason. The weaker the seal that holds the Demiurge, the stronger the demon becomes. While I believe it is the right decision to let a little more chaos run through the world if it means killing Hilda, I will trust the Hero's decision.

  Hoffstein turned to the team. “You. You want to help us?”

  “Help?” Cloud says. “She'll kill us in a second!”

  “He's right.” Morgana says. “Hilda is on another level. Normal soldiers must join the army and fight the monsters. Their mobilization was precarious, especially that of the Vanusians themselves, who are still dealing with the destruction of their homeland. Draining the mana used to rebuild the army is unfeasible, and you will only control them so that they do not hinder us. Resources are scarce, this is a one-day battle, at this exact moment. Honestly, maybe it would be better if they ran.”

  Cloud frowns. “… No. I will fight.”

  “Yes!” Nia says. “I can increase the emission of the group from the outside.”

  Wander arranges his glasses. “This is suicide, but… I don't think we have a better option here. But we can slow down the creatures that come out of it.”

  “Great.” Hoffstein says, setting his hand on fire and handing a golden flame to Cloud. “This is my flame, it will never cease. When the time comes, that is, when Hilda is weak enough, use her to impose authority and command the army to collapse against Hilda... If there is one by then.”

  Cloud's hands shake, but he nods.

  Quiet. One last second before the order is given. Hoffstein inspires and commands them with a gesture. “Go.”

  And they leave, running towards the army.

  “Don't die.” Cloud says, turning and circling the hill to reach the slopes of the army. Heading towards the hill, the elven forces veer from the direct path against Hilda to let their hope fight undisturbed.

  The Queen's grunts subside, her wounds healing with lethargy due to the ultraviolet light Hoffstein had used. Tumors grow inside the fairy, but she is not stopped. Their pathogenic aura spreads like dark green clouds.

  “… Overwhelming, isn't it?” He says. “We need a plan.”

  “… Yes.” I say.

  “Are you afraid?”

  “… Yes. Have you ever felt this way?”

  Hoffstein spits out a laugh. “Every time.”

  I look at him. “Really?”

  “Aye. It's a little different for me because of the Order, but, It doesn't matter. My trick is simple: smile. Give hope to your own, and terror to your enemies. Attack them with the purest divine fury that is in your chest, without petty irritations. Show them that you have not been beaten, and that you can never win.”

  I inhale, then nod and get ready for the battle.