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Oh, shit. This isn\'t good.

Zeal was at least at the Adept Stage. He had a domain — and that meant that he and Claire were in trouble.

A smile split the old man\'s face and he beckoned them onwards. Zeal didn\'t seem even slightly threatened by their presence. He just looked excited to have a fight.

I\'ll oblige him, then.

Alex sent Princess forward with a thought, not wasting a second in diving back and casting Mirror Image, causing two equally colorless clones of himself to shimmer into the air around him.

He didn\'t know what Zeal was capable of or what his domain could do. Before Alex could commit to an attack, he had to figure out what the elderly man\'s magic actually did.

Claire ripped herself out of her pain and darted back, raising her hands before her face defensively as she waited for him to make a move, clearly aiming for the same goal that Alex had.

Charging ahead like bulls into a fight with an opponent like this was suicide.

Alex had only seen a single domain in action, and that had been Berith\'s, when the demon had deleted an unbelievably powerful monster from existence with little more than a word and a flick of his fingers.

Go, Princess! Draw out an attack so we can see how to fight against this guy!

The Blacktongue Dredge lurched forward and moved between Alex and Zeal. She lifted a hand and reached out for the old man —

Zeal flicked his brush as if he were painting a stroke in the air.

Princess\' body split in half.

Gelatinous ooze spilled across the ground as the top of Princess\' form slipped forward and splattered to the white ground, staining it black.

Alex blinked in surprise. Unease and awe welled within him. He\'d seen Zeal move his brush, but he hadn\'t seen an attack at all. There hadn\'t been a shimmer of magic or a blade. There had simply been nothing.

One moment, Princess had been whole. The second, she\'d been sliced.

Strands reached out between her two halves as she stitched herself back together. Zeal tilted his head to the side as the Blacktongue Dredge rose back up to her full height, her arms rippling on her back in displeasure.

Approval lit in his eyes and he made no moves to press his advantage. The old man looked more than content to simply see what Alex was capable of.

Princess lurched forward once more — and once more, Zeal flicked his brush through the air.

The Dredge split apart at the head, a vertical line running straight down her middle. She shifted her mask to the side at the last second, pulling it away from the line of damage, but the two halves of her body collapsed to the ground, fighting to reform.

Again, there had been no visible attack. The Dredge had simply been sliced apart at Zeal\'s will.

Shit. I think I\'m figuring out how his magic works, but I need to make sure.

Princess rose once more.

"Go," Alex ordered.

She lurched into motion.

Again and again, Princess threw herself at Zeal. The old man seemed more than amiable to allow Alex the attempts to discern how the domain worked. He didn\'t press back or attempt to attack him or Claire — but every cut Princess suffered drew more magic.

Zeal handled the attacks with such casual ease that it looked like he was sparring against children. Every single motion he made was graceful and elegant, like the strokes of a dancer who had practiced their technique thousands upon thousands of times over.

But Alex\'s attempts weren\'t for nothing. He watched Zeal\'s brush closely, tracking every motion as best he could to make sure his theory was right.

"Split apart," Alex whispered to Claire. "I\'ll keep his attention as best I can. I think I can get us an opening."

Claire gave him a sharp nod and darted off to the side. Princess reformed and lurched toward Zeal once more, an extra command loaded in her head.

A smile crossed over the old man\'s features. His brush danced through the air — and Princess threw herself to the side in a lurching roll the very instant he moved. One of her legs didn\'t make the trip and splattered to the ground.

Alex sent a mental command to the rest of his monsters as Princess rose back up to her full height, her leg re-attaching itself. It was time to change up his pattern.

Glint and Princess dashed at Zeal as one. A flicker of concentration passed over the old man\'s features and his brush danced from the Dredge to the Shardwalker. As soon as it was moving in the Glint\'s direction, the monster hurled himself to the ground.

Princess splattered apart, not fast enough to avoid the attack, but Glint was unharmed. He darted back to Alex as Princess started to reform.

It was Alex\'s turn to grin. His guess hadn\'t been revolutionary, but it had been right. Zeal\'s magic might have been invisible, but it still followed the direction his brush moved in. It was only as fast as he was.

If I can predict what he\'s doing, then we have a chance of getting close to him. There\'s practically no way to pull that off without taking a bunch of extra wounds, but fortunately, I\'ve got the bodies to spare.

It\'s time to make a real attack.

Glint and Spark burst into motion together with Princess, taking cover behind the larger monster\'s bulk as they flashed toward Zeal.

"You said you were from the Empty Court," Alex called. "Is that—"

Zeal\'s brush danced through the air. All of Alex\'s monsters dodged out of the way, splitting in opposite directions to minimize the chances of them all getting taken out at once. Princess\' right half peeled away from her and a huge cut ripped across Spark\'s shoulder, sending coursing blue energy leaking out, but all of his minions survived the attack.

Yes! Go!

Claire, who had looped around to Zeal\'s back, exploded into motion in conjunction with Glint and Spark.

They had an opening. Zeal couldn\'t move his brush to attack every single one of them at—

Spark exploded, split apart by an invisible blade. Glint\'s body split down the middle and shattered like a window of broken glass. Claire jerked back and hurled herself to the side. A deep wound carved down her shoulder and sent her blood spraying across the ground. She let out a hiss of pain and rolled to the side, shooting back to her feet and dodging to the side preemptively.

Power flowed into Alex, its arrival nearly completely masked by the surprise that gripped him. He took a stunned step back.

What the hell was that? There should have been no way for him to attack that many directions at the same time! He never did anything like that before!

He sent a command to Princess, but the Dredge\'s mask shattered before he could even finish instructing her. The monster collapsed into a puddle and drained away, sending even more magic into Alex.

Zeal had killed every single one of his summons in a second.

"You had the right idea," Zeal said with a chuckle. "But my domain would be a rather poor one if I could only attack a single thing at a time. That would hardly be worthy of calling a dream."

Before Alex could respond, one of his Mirror Images shattered.

Alex flinched back, then dove out of the way. He hit the ground in a roll, the craggy platform digging into his arms and side as he shot back to his feet. He couldn\'t even tell if he\'d avoided anything. Zeal\'s magic was utterly without presence.

"Bah," Zeal said. "That\'s a very realistic replication of yourself, young man. But I think I\'m done playing around."

"So am I," Alex replied. He locked eyes with Claire, who stood on the other side of the platform. There was only one way they had a chance of beating an attack they couldn\'t see or track. Zeal had just been playing with them, but he wasn\'t out of cards yet.

He still had one left to play.

Surprise.

Alex activated Encore.

Glass shattered and electric energy roared. A pool of black bubbled where Princess had fallen, and every single one of Alex\'s monsters ripped themselves back to life. He grabbed onto his magic and thrust it into Glint, mixing Qi and his power together as he activated Rift Flood.

Glint\'s body expanded as it doubled in size. His back hunched; shards of glass exploded out from within it as his jaw elongated. The teeth within his mouth pushed it open, growing so large that it could no longer close properly. Swirls of mist poured off his body, turned a dull grey by Zeal\'s domain.

The monsters all burst into motion, charging at Zeal without any regard to their survival.

Alex and Claire joined them in the charge. They couldn\'t afford to sit back and poke at him any longer. It was all or nothing.

Spark shattered.

Princess threw herself forward. Her mask exploded into fragments, but blobs of her form splattered into Zeal and drove him down under her weight. The elderly man was forced to take a step back under the onslaught.

A loud, scraping shriek rang out from Glint. Glass ground against something… but the Shardwalker didn\'t falter.

Alex\'s strongest monster threw himself forward with a wordless hiss, his massive claws arcing through the air for Zeal. Alex thrust his palms forward, sending a river of glass exploding out from his own hands — and Claire drove her sword at his back.

Zeal smiled.

Ink exploded all around him. It bloomed like a pot had been spilled across the white paper of the world all around them — and Alex realized just how wrong he had been.

A massive dragon coiled around Zeal, its body painted with what must have been a million different, intricate strokes. He could practically see the texture of the brush within the monster, but this was no mere drawing.

Pressure rolled off the massive beast with enough force to make Alex\'s eyes feel like fingers were trying to press into them. It made his throat clench and squeezed at his chest, but he pressed forward — and so did Glint.

The Shardwalker\'s claws screeched against the dragon\'s skin, leaving deep cuts within its body, but failing to reach his true target. Alex pressed forward with a roar. His magic branched out from his palms and shattered against the drawn monster. It didn\'t so much as cut into its scales. Claire\'s sword rang off the dragon an instant later to no effect.

Glint\'s Qi-empowered attack had been the only one to anything.

Shit. You have to be kidding me. How is this fair?

"You have skill," Zeal said with a delighted laugh. "You were able to get this close without utilizing your own domains. I hold great respect for that — but you can go no farther without matching me in strength. Release your Soul Manifestations. I have only attacked with a single one of my dragon\'s claws until now, but I will utilize my full strength if you do not respect our battle."

"We\'re not trying to be disrespectful here," Alex said, clenching his teeth. They were seriously outmatched. There was no other way to see it — but that didn\'t mean he\'d give up. There were still a few seconds left in Glint before Encore faded, and Glint had managed to injure the dragon. There was still a chance. He just had to find an opening. "I\'d love to use my domain against you… but neither of us have one."

Zeal let out a bark of laughter, but his amusement fell away when he realized that Alex wasn\'t smiling. "What?"

"I\'m only at the beginning of Initiate, and she\'s still at the peak of Novice."

The old man\'s hands lowered slightly as his frown depend. "Are you telling me that—"

Glint exploded into motion. He flung himself over the dragon and reached for Zeal. A single one of his claws managed to snag the man\'s robes, just barely brushing against his skin before the dragon snapped out in a blur.

There was a crunch, and then Glint too was gone. Alex winced.

Fuck.

"You are lying to me," Zeal said, his expression darkening in anger. "I sense our path within you. That is why you were taken to my step. You are a fellow disciple of the Empty Court, and we do not permit the weak among our ranks. If your Mind Palace had been ill-formed, the pressure from my domain would have crushed you. Cowardice is not on our path."

He senses — oh, you have to be kidding me.

"Someone called Meiderly gave me a fragment of power from the Empty Court because we had an interesting talk," Alex said. "I—"

The rest of his explanation didn\'t get a chance to make it from his lips. Zeal blurred, crossing the distance between them in a split instant as his hands slammed down on Alex\'s shoulders and pinned him in place. The elderly man\'s eyes were as wide as saucers.

"Did you just say Meiderly?"