All that existed was the fog. Yet Havoc was not adrift in this endless sea of white—he was every plume, every billowing cloud. Where the heavy fog spread, so too did he. He was everywhere, yet nowhere at all. He was one, yet through the endless mist, he was part of something far greater—timeless and vast. It spilled beyond the boundaries of self, seeping into everything, into everyone—across all moments at once.

'I wouldn't wander too far if I were you,' came a voice through the mist—rich, amused, unmistakably mocking. 'Right now, I am you. Better to take your own advice.'

Where am I? Havoc wanted to ask, but as mist, he had no mouth to speak.

'Where do you think you are?' the voice chided, brittle with irritation. 'Honestly. Try thinking with your head—oh, wait, that's right… you don't have one. Fix that. Then think with it.'

I've been here before, he thought, the memory rising like smoke through the haze. He was Havoc Gray, an orphan Inheritor—a scoundrel, a thief. A reprobate fiend who would never accept his place. Born again in fire and blood, he was the one who would not be commanded. Not by his betters. Not by the gods. Not even by destiny. He would tear loose a strand from the tapestry of fate—and with it, throttle his enemies, and live on his own terms.

'Give my body back,' he growled, his tone coarse with fury as the final wisps of his vaporous form knitted together his fingers and toes.

'Why so upset, poppet?' the Abominable Spirit protested, its voice slick with mocking disbelief. 'You should be thanking me. You couldn't hope to contain this kind of power. With you at the helm, you'd have already torn yourself apart—where would that leave me? Think of the children… Yes, yes, I know—we don't have any. A technicality, if you ask me. But still—certainly no excuse for such flagrant selfishness.'

His Captive Spirit was deranged—of that there was no question. But Havoc knew there was truth to its claim. Shifting his heart closer to his spine had allowed him to survive Ugly's first strike, but faint from blood loss, he could never have hoped to contend with whatever Ugly had become.

No—even at full strength, he would not have stood a chance. The man radiated power in waves, tangible and immense, each one pressing down like a rising tide, threatening to sweep him away. He stood far beyond the might of even the most powerful Servant Inheritor. Havoc did not know how Ugly could have advanced within the Dungeon Cell, but there was no pretending otherwise. Even the strangling pressure that pulsed from Annalise when she unleashed her power could not compare to the towering might that rolled from the man with his every step.

As the man—the beast—loomed, Havoc's head clutched within Ugly's inhuman grasp, keenly could he feel the untraversable chasm of power that stretched between them. Yet, in an instant, that abyss had been bridged—more than bridged. The power churning within him far exceeded even the force that had crashed down upon him.

First, there was a spark, then came the inferno. His dualistic power twined within his core, melding together to become something else.

'Catharsia,' the Spirit murmured, its tone strangely reverent. 'The perfect balance of light and dark. Order and Chaos—Blessed Harmony and Abyssal Pandamonia. Oh, how the gods would envy what we are!' it squealed, frenzied glee sharpening its tone.

Much more than the sum of its parts, as it surged, it had threatened to overwhelm him. And in that moment, knowing he could not have controlled his power alone…

'I gave you my body?' The words burst from Havoc's lips, his ghostly eyes flashing wide.

'You framed it as a loan,' the Spirit replied, tone dry and gleefully dismissive. 'But I am more than happy to renegotiate the terms of our arrangement. After all, our little cabal could certainly use a change in leadership.'

He had no choice. With all the power gushing through him, even the slightest motion would have left him crumpled and ruined—shattered by the force of his own momentum. He had felt that instinctively. While the power was his, he could not have commanded it.

'But I could!' the Spirit chimed, as though reciting an exaggerated line in some tragicomic farce. 'It would not be an overstatement to say I was made for such power—oh, Noble Spirit, weapon of the gods. Formed over millennia, forgotten in an instant; each one of us, handcrafted and abandoned.'

The mist rumbled and stirred, a voice—ancient and deep—filling the void.

'Another failure,' the voice pronounced.

'They went to war to become what we are, my boy,' the Spirit chided, its tone heavy with disdain. 'A being of Catharsia—conflicting powers bound together, that they might contend against Him.' A cackling laugh tore through the fog—sharp, grating, mirthless. 'Or do you not know? Even the gods were abandoned.'

Havoc did not know whether his phantom form had brows, but if they did, they would have lifted high as the Spirit spoke secrets unimagined.

'Stewards of Harmony—but who is the owner? Sentinels of Perdition—but for whose sake did they stand guard?' it whispered as though its lips were pressed to Havoc's ear. 'The Silent One—the Missing One. The one who forsook this reality, no doubt in disgust over the failure of His creation.'

The Spirit paused. The realm of mist grew still. Then, just as suddenly, the world was in motion once again, plumes of white surging with renewed verve, as the Spirit's laughter refilled the expanse.

'There's nothing left!' The Spirit cried, mania riding its words. 'Some say that I'm mad, but I could never compare to the lunatics that ate all creation!'

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Havoc's mind spun, his thoughts overlapping in a cascade of conflicting ideas before finally settling on one.

The Entity.

The one that had taken him from the Chamber of Inheritance—the one that had bestowed his dualistic power. He had done all he could to push the encounter beyond thought, but even he had begun to suspect what it was. A god—whether Steward or Sentinel, he did not know.

But that was not the question. Not now.

Now, all he wanted to know was what it had made him.

'A more perfect being,' the Spirit answered without delay. 'And a template for what it wishes to become.'

'What do you mean?' Havoc stammered.

'The gods disgust me—but they are powerful. Vastly so. Mighty, yet not Almighty. Still, this Dungeon of yours could never have confined them… not unless they chose to be confined.'

'If they chose to be confined…' Havoc whispered, the words slipping from his lips without thought.

'Now you're getting it, my boy,' the Spirit praised, its tone condescending as though an abusive school master berating a child before his peers. 'Of course, they would leave a way out. If one has made its move, the rest will surely follow. Even now, they'll be moving pieces into place—divine avatars among the Dungeon's precious children. After all, this Dungeon of yours is the only being in the cosmos to wield Harmony and Pandamonia alike… That is, until you.'

A piece on someone else's board…

Of course, Havoc knew the Entity would not have saved him for his own sake. He knew he was being used. But having his fears pronounced so indisputably…

It makes no difference.

His fists clenched, and his teeth bore down. Whatever that being planned for him mattered little if he would not obey. If anything, this revelation was good news. When he had knelt before that thing, it had seemed unassailable—that was not true. It was one fallen god among a vanquished pantheon. It was not without rival. One such contender had no doubt sent Ugly—a direct provocation to his own dark patron.

There were old-Aarth fears of automatons made by man, mechanoid beings that would supplant humanity's rule. It had all seemed laughable when he had read of such things—how could metal and wire breed life? How much less could a craftsman lose control of his craft? But that was what he would become: a monster of the gods they could not control.

As his senses attuned to the outside world, and he felt himself wield power beyond imagining, he knew that one day, that very blade the gods formed as a tool would bear down upon their lowered necks.

He had not regained control of his body, but he could feel its every movement—a spectator with the most prized seat in the house. He felt the wind lash his hair as his legs moved without notice, ascending a spiral staircase of shimmering red toward the heavens.

With tar-black wings unfurled, Ugly waited—his patchwork form hulking above the clouds.

The stone eye fused to his chest glowed amber, a beam of golden-green energy surging toward him.

Havoc laughed, but it was not his voice. He raised his arm—crimson, scabrous, unrecognisable. Nor could he account for the strength of the scarlet sundering force that cleaved through the golden beam, rending Ugly in two.

Ugly's lower-half writhed from below his severed torso, furred and muscular legs busting out from the wound. In an instant he was restored, yet in the next he came undone, the Thirsty Strike slipping through skin, bone, and viscera as easily as a threaded needle through silk.

His speed was astounding. He moved as though positioned by the world—everything else held still, space rushing to his call. Yet despite his peerless might, he knew it would not last.

Thin scars lined his crimson blade, and dust poured from the cracks spread wide across the Stone Guardsman. Havoc could even feel the Flesh-Weave Needle deform within his thigh. The power surging through his Spirit Chain went far beyond what they were made to withstand. That they had endured this long was already beyond his reckoning—though if he were to guess, he would not put it past the Spirit's wiles.

Worse still, his body ached with a terrible pain, as though each individual bone had been ground to dust and remoulded to hold his frame. Even the scarlet armour of the Captive Spirit had begun to crack.

The Spirit could better temper the power within him, but even its command was not flawless. They were on borrowed time—and he was not alone in that realisation.

'Like an ole man with a young'en bride—can't keep it up, can ya?' Ugly jeered, his tone thick with mocking amusement.

'Alas, you are right, my grotesque friend. I cannot,' the Spirit replied, as though a gentleman trading boasts in an alehouse. 'But you see—I will not have to. Not when you'll be dead with our next exchange.'

To its words, Ugly simply snorted, his form swelling larger as his muscles tensed.

'I got plenty of life left in me. But you're welcome to take yer shot,' he said—his last few words deepening into a growl.

The two held still—Ugly suspended by rubbery wings, the Spirit crouched low upon a platform of ethereal red. Then the sky quaked.

Endless shards of crimson light erupted from before Havoc. They hounded Ugly across the sky like dogs in pursuit of a fleeing hare. Yet Ugly was not defenceless—he shattered countless shards with his amber beam of petrifying energy, somehow nullifying their apparitional substance.

But it was not enough, and he knew it. Abandoning all defence, Ugly soared into the scarlet storm. His flesh was shredded and reknit time and again as he lurched toward Havoc. With a cry of defiance, he raised a monstrous arm, his mystic sword shimmering into his parting and reforming grip. The blade shone with golden light as it shot to the heavens, expanding in width and length—becoming a titan's blade.

Like a vengeful god—or perhaps its executioner—he brought the blade down, cleaving through the clouds as it descended.

'Ah, truly a worthy debut,' the Spirit muttered as it lifted its fractured blade. The Stone Guardsman crumbled to dust at its side, its loss felt immediately through Havoc's Spirit Chain as the Spirit leapt.

As though all the world was thunder, a crash like no other shattered all sound. The sky burned bright with a terrible glow, scarlet and gold hues washing over the skyline. Then—silence.

The Thirsty Strike was the first to break. From tip to hilt, it shattered to dust, scattered on the wind. Then Havoc saw something fall—his bladed horns, plummeting from the sky, even as he too began to fall.

And then there was Ugly, a grin plastered to his face. His wings still beat behind him, yet he was strangely still. Then, as if drawn in ink, red bloomed down his form—from forehead to groin. The two halves of his monstrous frame slid apart, spraying blood like a fountain. But unlike the times before, he did not reform. He simply fell, eyes frozen with defiance.

'To strike a blow against them, you have my gratitude, my boy.'

With its final words spoken, it was Havoc alone who fell from the sky.

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