II-114 Face of the Enemy

Calling upon Yu to destroy that world was our first mistake; using the Claimed Hells as our dagger was the second. We were fools to think that Mepheleon wouldn’t notice.

We were even greater fools to imagine a man capable of murdering his son so easily, no matter how cruel his history. But the gravest error was our ignorance of the boy himself—dismissing him as just another fictional bastard.

The moment I laid eyes on him, I saw that our undoing would not mirror Sarah’s. He doesn’t back off. He doesn’t weigh consequences the way she does. More importantly, he hates us—a hatred so fierce it has become his faith.

We need to get rid of him. We must kill him before he ever sets foot on Earth. He must be stopped. He’s already growing too fast.

We are not prepared to fight this war with him, and we will not let him take our home. God knows what he will do there. God knows what he will do to our people. And God knows how we’re going to stop him if we give him just a few more weeks…

-High Consul Haythem Winters

II-114

Face of the Enemy

Wei’s duel ended in an honorable draw. At the finish, he congratulated John Doe for being a truly honorable warrior—one whose honor knew no bounds, one whose honor demanded he continue fighting even though the match was clearly lost, and his arm was utterly destroyed. Wei himself, an honorable man taught from his very first day to hold honor above all, bowed out gracefully and accepted the draw.

“You do me proud, John Doe,” Wei said. “It pleases me to have an enemy like you.” He leaned against Agnesia—not because he couldn’t bear weight on his knee or because he was baffled by his still‐unhealed wounds, nor because he glared at John’s armor, which seemed to inflict lingering injuries.

John Doe nodded. “And you as well, young master. For a while, I assumed the Concept Breaker was in unworthy hands. Then, after you fought and defeated the Celestial Vanguard, I feared it was in cruel hands. Now I trust it is the hands of a warrior.” His eye twitched constantly; Wei knew he was in immense pain. “You know why, young master?”

John cocked his head. “Why is your left hand shaking?”

“It just does that after a fight with a strong opponent,” Wei managed.

Agnesia reached up and patted his head.

“Agnesia, please don’t do that—it’s demeaning,” Wei protested. She did it again. He vowed to punish her later, if he could only reach up and pat her back in revenge.

But as he turned, Agnesia loomed over him, smiling.

“Gods,” Wei breathed, insides shuddering. “Why is she so big? Why am I so terrified?”

Those exact thoughts echoed through his mind when Sarah Moonscar swept into the room.

“Young Master—Wait—” Moonscar stopped and blinked at Agnesia. Everyone else stared. A floating crystal hovered behind Moonscar’s shoulders; her once mystical appearance had been made more mundane. Her hair was midnight silk, but nothing more. Her eyes were black, and she looked almost entirely human. The only thing that still gave away her power was the flowing crystalline dress she wore and the colossal amount of power radiating from her. Fragments of what looked like a shattered planet orbited around her, forming a faint, flowing overcoat as well. 

Wei guessed she must have returned from some grand function or gala for a Circle, rubbing shoulders with high society.

She probably didn’t anticipate coming back home to find a giant of a princess standing in her arena.

“How—how did you grow four meters tall?” Moonscar stammered.

Agnesia smiled proudly. “Oh, hello. You must be the mistress of this lodge.” She reached down and offered her hand—so large she could have grasped Moonscar’s entire torso.

“I shot a Shadow Leviathan in the face,” Agnesia continued. “Wei loaned me his gun. It was very effective.”

Moonscar’s wordlessness lasted a few minutes more. “I—I see. You have my congratulations on your class specialization advancement.” The leader of the Trespasser’s Lodge coughed and looked at the young master. “Wei, if you have time now—”

Wei sighed and bowed. “Please. I have already dueled one of your great champions. To duel another offends my honor.”

“Yes,” John Doe agreed gravely. “It is not honorable.”

Moonscar frowned at them both. “Why are you two injured?”

“We are not injured,” they said in unison. “I merely have a tired arm, and I wanted to give him an even chance.”

Wei hobbled away, doing his best to make it seem like he was practicing the “Crippled Dog Style.” “I was adapting my weight. I saw an opening and aimed for a throw.”

Moonscar watched them, then closed her eyes and sighed. “Yes, fine, children. I thought I was only dealing with one child, though.” She glared at John Doe.

His stone‐cold demeanor wavered as Wei looked down at the Fighter’s trembling hand. “Your hand is shaking too, Master Doe.”

John Doe nodded. “I, too, grow excited after a fight with an honorable foe.”

Moonscar rolled her eyes. “Well, can you two get excited about a conversation with the Inheritor Consuls?”

Suddenly, Wei’s courtesy vanished. A cold focus and anger took hold, driving an urge to greet his enemies and spit his venom.

“The Inheritor masters… they’re here?” he demanded.

“Yes,” Sarah Moonscar said quietly.

Wei flared his scythe. “Good—let me see him.”

“No,” Sarah said, and her voice smashed into his mind, grounding his thoughts.

When Wei blinked, he saw Agnesia reaching for Moonscar. A ripple of arcane essence surrounded Sarah Moonscar, preventing the princess from advancing. Suddenly, the Master of the Lodge’s visage changed, and there was a flash of a broken moon behind her. The world was cold and silent. Then, sound returned. The suddenness of the moment was surreal.

The room fell silent. A calmness, woven from Moonscar’s very words, spread over them. Wei’s system bolstered his willpower—unbreakable through ambition unspent on skills. Everyone stared, rapt, and a look of euphoric reverie washed over their faces. Agnesia looked especially besotted. Wei winced. I need to find a way to strengthen her mind as well, he thought. Only Wei—and John Doe—remained unaffected. Truly, an honorable warrior.

“I apologize,” Wei said, keeping his scythe raised. “But you understand why I must do this.”

“You don’t have to,” Moonscar replied carefully. “It’s pointless. They’re sending replicas of themselves, with limited memories. Even if you break them, it won’t kill them—only damage their property.”

Wei blinked. “You could have started with that. You could have been more patient and let me explain. They know what you are, who you are. They’re not lambs to the slaughter, and you’ve been loud and messy enough that half the Claimed Hells—and probably more factions beyond—know how to deal with you.”

Wei scowled. “Fine.”

“But even if they know, their fates are inevitable. And this conversation could buy us time—for you to finish killing the other competitors or recruiting them to your cause.” Moonscar eyed Vendrian. The Scion merely glared back.

“I heard you claimed the aid of the Forgemaster as well.”

“Ah, yes—Kalrus,” Wei grinned. “He is a very fine partner. He has shown me some very awesome devices.”

“He also sacrifices prisoners to test his tools,” Moonscar said, trying to remind Wei of the orc’s sins. 

The young master nodded. “That just makes him a sinner here—an ugly thing he will atone for many times.”

Wei tilted his head. “By selling me guns. A lot of guns. Potentially a ballistic missile. He promised to make me a missile I can ride on.”

Moonscar stared, then glowered at John Bishop. “Bishop, I thought you said you maintained his ethical standards.”

Bishop looked away.

“Listen, a lot has happened the past few days. It’s not really his fault,” William said.

“I’m not talking to you.” Moonscar’s words struck William with literal weight, and he flew backward across the room.

Wei felt a flicker of admiration for Moonscar—just from that single act alone.

But Wei hesitated before dismissing his scythe, for the surrounding space was beginning to change. Bladed edges rose from the ground. The sun—or rather, a great cleaving edge—lit the world in light, while all the land became engulfed in shadow. Wei blinked and realized his scythe had changed. There was a clash of Essence between him and Moonscar, but she surrendered to his core expansion. 

Once more, Wei’s Realm of the Withering Harvest unveiled itself.

Sarah Moonscar observed Wei’s new Skill with a look of surprise and realization. “You have shards now,” she said, “and you use them on your Concept Core of Harvest.” She knew, because once upon a time she too was like him. But not exactly—according to Bishop, no two Concept Breakers were alike.

“What do you think?” Wei asked, letting the moment linger.

“I think it is very much who you are,” she replied, studying the scythe. “To take, to reap, to wound, to kill, to break them down bit by bit. You are too outraged, too furious, to grant them an easy death. So you want to seize all that is theirs—hence the shape.”

“Yours wasn’t a scythe,” Wei pointed out.

“It was a harvest as well,” she said, “but my symbols were locusts, not a scythe.”

“Locusts,” Wei echoed. “I was more of a strategist. I planned, set my moves in motion without my enemies knowing I was there.”

“Seems like there is a substantial gulf in the way we do things,” Wei conceded.

“It will have to do,” Moonscar settled, her words carrying both disappointment and a finality that accepted she was no longer the user of that breaker.

With that final thought, Wei dismissed his skill, and the world returned to normal. Everyone else also recovered from Moonscar’s verbal compulsion.

“What was that?” Ignisia breathed, glaring down at Moonscar.

“That was a command,” Moonscar replied coolly. “I will not use it on you again if you do not try to make a move on me.”

Agnesia turned to regard Wei, seeking guidance. 

He simply sighed. “Fine, then,” he said. “Since we’re already committed to this farce, I want to see them. And I want to let them know just what’s going to happen. And who is going to be the one that kills them.”

“Wei?” William called out.

“You—stay out of this,” the young master snarled. “Don’t go anywhere near this. You stay… anywhere else.”

A sudden rush of rage passed through Wei and left only coldness behind. He stared at his father, who clenched his jaw and looked aside.

What Wei didn’t want to admit—would never admit out loud—was that he was trying to protect his father in a twisted way. Since he wasn’t going to kill William Yu yet, perhaps any time soon, he didn’t want his useful advisor and potential instructor slaughtered as hated collateral if the Consul provoked him to rage. And there was a very, very good chance they might.

He found himself guided into a conference room in the Grey House. There, he was seated at the end of a long table, while the rest of the sect waited outside, guarded by Trespassers. Faye wasn’t sure how she felt about this arrangement. She trusted Bishop enough—and that sufficed.

As Bodenscar took a seat beside him, she tapped the table once. After a few moments, someone else entered—though through a different hallway, a different place altogether. Once again, Wei remembered that the Grey House was a strange place. Rooms seemed to move in relation to each other, arriving and breaking apart at the whims of Moonscar and the other Trespassers. It made invasion a nightmare, even harder to hold, and ultimately ensured the Grey House was one of the few extreme fortresses of the Claimed Hells.

Wei, however, found himself glaring at the newcomer. The man strode forward in long flowing robes. His long beard swayed slightly as he angled his head, spotting Wei with a frown. He bore a large staff of gnarled wood. A crystal was fused at its top, caged—but the power within seemed eager to escape. The man’s aura was potent enough to shroud a small city—far more than Wei could muster, even with his system. Yet the Essence was dense, focused rather than spread thin. Hazel eyes regarded Wei with as much intent as the young master offered.

After a few moments, eleven more people entered. Dressed variously—though most wore suits—they seated themselves along the table, each behind the robed man.

The robed leader cleared his throat. “It is good to see you again, Sarah.”

Sarah Moonscar said nothing for a moment. “Haythem,” she continued, “why are we doing this? Please explain your reasoning to the young master here.”

She side-eyed the leader of the Trespassers Lodge and frowned. Suddenly, Wei felt it—she was pushing him further along some inevitable collision course. Earlier, she’d called this a truce discussion with her enemy; now, she was practically blaming them for his presence. Yet Wei didn’t mind. It was, after all, their fault he was here. If not for them, he’d still have a world. If not for them, he wouldn’t need to go to the Abyss to visit his mother. If not for them, so many things would be just right.

Haythem let out a long, suffering sigh. “Of course you would do this. Of course, you would force us to meet this way. Well, boy—here it is.” He jabbed his staff at Moonscar. “Here’s her way: misdirection, omission, misrepresentation, lies—politics. 

“I don’t care what her way is. I don’t care that she lied to me just now.” Wei cut through the man’s attempt at redirecting his rage. “I don’t care about anything she did. She could have lied every second of every moment we shared together. She could have tried to kill me—and I still would have hated her less than I hate you right now.”

He rose from the table. Moonscar simply watched—her earlier intensity about him not attacking them was nonexistent right now.

Haythem narrowed his eyes. “Fine.” He planted his staff on the ground and rose as well.

The young master walked around the table, approaching the old, towering man. “You are the one,” he said. “You are a hierarch of the Inheritors.”

Haythem bowed slightly. “I am.”

“And you are the one who declared that my world needed to burn. The one who commanded my father to murder my mother, to betray my people.”

Haythem studied him in silence for a long moment. “I was,” he said at last. “But it was—” 

Wei struggled, doing his best to stay his hand. A hand trembling with rage and hatred. Yet despite everything, his will held him in check—barely. “It was for what? For my system? For what I have now?”

Wei activated his newest skill, and once more they were plunged into a world where the harvest reigned—where the scythe loomed, perpetual, begging to be used, begging to reap.

Haythem looked up, expression grim. “This is…”

“It doesn’t matter what you want—” Wei smashed through the man’s words. “It doesn’t matter anything you want any more, just like it didn’t matter for my world. When this is done, when I obtain the title of Hell’s Vanguard, I’m going to Earth. Do you understand me? I’m going to take your world from you forever. “Doesn’t matter what I’ll do with it—I haven’t even thought of that yet,” he continued, voice raw. “But I’m going to take your home. You will never, never see your world again. Do you understand me? Do you hear me?”

Haythem’s own outrage flared. “You will never touch my world! You will stay away from Earth, you twisted, broken—”

And then, Moonscar spoke a single word, making everything worse. “Infuriate.”

And the two men began speaking over each other, both driven to vent an overwhelming rage.