Even with seven—the four of us, plus the three survivors from the Governing Council group—we weren't as effective a team as I'd hoped.

The first problem was one of coordination. Yasmin, Jeff, Ellen, and I had all been working together for a while, and Jeff, Sophia, and I had run a couple of portals a while ago, but Douglas and Arturo didn't fit into the puzzle at all. They'd been a pick-up GC team, with the goal of getting Sophia through this portal and moving her closer to C-Rank so she could find work in a hospital instead of delving. Neither of them had a good idea of how the other fought.

And then there was Sophia herself. She was a mess. An absolute mess. The Spark of Life felt a lot of guilt about the ones she couldn't do anything for—including Jessie—but she clearly had some sort of coping mechanism, and she'd had time. Both of Sophia's most recent losses were in the last hour or two, and she blamed herself. Yasmin ended up glued to the healer's side, trying to fill her own role and help her heal at the same time.

So, naturally, the second group of enemies we ran into proved to be a brand new challenge.

Dawnblood Cultist: D-Rank

We found the red-robed, hooded cultists as the black hole's accretion disk finally settled below the horizon and the streets fell into shadow. There were a dozen of them, maybe more, all spread around a park with dried, crispy grass and leafless trees that reached for the sky like claws. A crude circle of bent, woven sticks sat in the middle of the park; as I watched, a transparent red specter walked through it and vanished.

I didn't bother wasting time talking. As the first cultist turned, revealing a pair of thrashing tentacles that covered their lower face completely, I lunged. The dueling blade caught them square in the chest; I felt it grind past ribs and into something that pulsed and tore against the electric blade.

The cultist didn't scream, though. They laughed even as they coughed up blood. I waited for their Health to heal their wound. Instead, they died on my sword—and as they did, a brand new specter walked slowly toward the wooden circle.

When it walked through, the entire circle began to glow.

"I'm not sure what that is, but it looks bad," Ellen said. "Can we kill the specters?"

I tried it on the second cultist, who rushed me with a rusty dagger that reminded me of a goblin's weapon, with even less skill than the green, wart-covered monsters. My sword caught him across the throat, severing one of his three tentacles before erupting out the side of his neck in a fountain of blood. Even the electric burn couldn't quell the tide. And this time, when the specter appeared, I slammed into it shoulder first. It fell apart, and I used my body to get rid of what was left of it.

But I couldn't help but feel like that was the wrong call. "I think we're stuck with one bad thing or another," I said.

"What do you mean? Just kill them." Jeff thrust his sword into a robed woman's gut three times, sending sprays of blood out of her back as the tip punched through to her far side. Then he broke up the specter and whirled to fight the next cultist. "They're just D-Rank. No big deal."

Arturo stared at the battlefield as his fingers moved across his violin, plucking a song. He'd foregone the bow for this one, and the twangy song almost sounded banjo-like. It also empowered my blade, making it feel sharper and more deadly. Then he stopped. "No, the lightning sword guy is right. I've got a bad feeling about the specters."

"So, what? You want to let them through?" Ellen asked.

"Yes," I said as I stabbed another cultist and danced away from the resulting specter. "Whatever's in the circle won't be as bad as whatever happens if we kill them all."

"Fine," Jeff said. "Quit killing the specters. Just don't blame me when this goes wrong."

We wiped out the rest of the cultists without any real problem, then watched as their ghostly remnants slowly walked into the wooden circle.

When the last one hit, it lit up like the sun—not blood red like the black hole's disk, but yellow-white, and bright enough to be blinding. I closed my eyes, but even through my eyelids, I could make out the thing that had appeared.

The Blood-Drained Light: C-Rank

Then, as quickly as it had lit up, it went dark.

I readied my sword. "This has to be the Paragon."

Then I threw myself into battle.

The Blood-Drained Light existed in the space between realities.

He was one of the least Paragons, and he knew it. His pocket dimension was small, without much in the way of form or substance. Not a void, but incomplete. His connection with the various Paths that relied on sunlight was tenuous at best. In comparison to a monster like the God of Thunder, the Blood-Drained Light was almost inconsequential.

But, just like the God of Thunder, he had his own cult. The Dawnblood Cult existed in many worlds—the one he'd just been summoned to was one of the only ones that could actually support him. Too strong, and he'd be unable to establish his foothold as a god. Too weak, and his presence would destabilize the portal world and send it into either a broken state or force him to kill the boss himself. It had happened before. Killing the boss was never a permanent solution, though, and he'd be right back where he came from if that happened.

The glowing, yellow core in his head turned to regard the half-dozen or so living beings. He blinked; portal-metal shutters clicked shut around the bright core, then opened again as the armillary around them spun. He reached out a gunmetal gray hand toward the closest of the living creatures.

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It regarded him. A blade of portal metal and energy hung in its hand. Then, as the Blood-Drained Light offered his hand to the creature—a gesture of solidarity and togetherness—it lashed out with the blade.

Pain.

The Blood-Drained Light felt pain.

And fury. Angry, pulsing fury.

He pulled back his hand. A single finger had been severed; golden, glowing blood dripped from the metal apparatus.

From the other six fingers, blades of light extended, each almost two feet long. The Blood-Drained Light threw himself into battle. He'd avenge this wound, and then he'd rebuild from his attacker's armor and weapon.

Blades of light filled the air as the Blood-Drained Light's four clawed hands spun and slashed at my face and chest. The Stormsteel gauntlet and breastplate took blow after blow, trying to tear at the offending weapons but finding no purchase. I parried and counterattacked, my free hand tucked behind my armored torso.

The Paragon blocked my counter almost lazily, then parried Douglas's halberd with a similar effort before jamming a pair of claws into his stomach. He spun and stumbled away from the construct. Then Jeff slammed his shield into the Blood-Drained Light's torso, and I got a moment to breathe.

In a way, the Blood-Drained Light was the least physically impressive of the Paragons we'd hunted so far. It only stood ten feet tall, counting the rotating rings of metal that looped around its shuttered head, and its body was thin and fragile-looking. Veins of bright, glowing yellow pulsed across its framework, while four clawed hands hung at ninety-degree angles around its 'shoulder.'

Four short legs scrabbled at the ground like a crab as it pursued Jeff. All four claws lunged at him at once. He activated Split-Second Shield and blocked them all.

Ellen's first Orb of Darkness hit the monster. It screamed and whirled toward her; I took advantage of its focus, grabbed my sword with both hands, and used Rain-Slicked Blade with the Rainfall Charge I'd earned by blocking and parrying. The blade sank through the portal-metal torso, compressed water hacking away at it as I tried to widen the cut.

A claw sliced across my unarmored arm. I jerked the dueling blade free reflexively and backpedaled as hard as I could as blood poured down my wrist.

Yasmin waved from where she and Sophia were standing over Douglas. They—mostly Sophia—had patched up his wound, though she looked tired already. He picked up his halberd and ran back into the fight. Yasmin stared at me, then pointed. "Get over here," she said.

"No, I'm not done yet," I muttered. The battle trance had me, and I wanted to keep fighting. And, equally importantly, I didn't want to risk losing my Lightning Charge.

So, instead of re-engaging, I cast a Slicing Bolt and doubled it.

The Paragon's body took the wind blades' impacts without a problem—a few minor dents, but nothing critical. But as the electricity whipped across its body, it twitched and sparked.

Then its eye opened. "Stormsteel's pet," a metallic yet sticky voice said. It stared at me, the light almost blinding.

I stared back. "Yes," I whispered.

The word hit the Blood-Drained Light like a fist to the face. His eye slammed shut, and a wave of anger flashed across me. "The God of Thunder agreed! This world. Was. Mine!"

"I didn't agree, and my friends are here."

When the Paragon renewed his attack, it was all focused on me.

I dropped into Mistwalk Stance, activated Gustrunner, and focused on staying alive against the whirlwind of claws—and, whenever the Blood-Drained Light opened its eye, a beam of blinding sun.

This was obviously a Paragon of a sun law. That'd be good for Cheddar; I needed to get him on the battlefield, and quickly. But the risk was too high; I didn't know Arturo or Douglas, and I definitely couldn't trust them with my secret.

Could I?

I parried, backstepped, took another slash from the Paragon's burning claws, and backstepped again. I activated Cloudwalk to cushion some of the blows that rained down on me. With four claws, some of them were getting through. I couldn't even use Ariette's Razor for a second blocking tool; a wind blade would be all but useless here.

And the Paragon had Jeff on ignore. Even his taunt skill accomplished next to nothing; a pair of slashes rang off his shield and armor before the monster's eye focused on me again.

Cuts covered my arms and stomach, and two deep ones had ripped through my cheek from ear to jawbone. I gritted my teeth and poured Stamina into them.

On a long enough time scale, Ellen and Douglas would probably kill the Blood-Drained Light. But by the time that happened, I'd be dead.

I needed an edge—no matter the consequences. So, as Jeff taunted again, I took the moment to summon Cheddar.

He flew overhead, screeched, and opened his jaws. A sunbeam rocketed down and slammed into the Paragon. Portal metal heated up for a moment, then the monster's veins started to shimmer as it pulled the energy away from the impact point and into its body.

It laughed, the same sticky and metallic voice. "Interesting. It won't help you."

Then it renewed its attack. Ellen's Shadow Boxing ripped across its body, and a halberd crashed into one of its shoulder joints, but it almost ignored both impacts.

So far, the only things that had hurt it were Tallas's Dueling Blade and Cheddar's sunbeam—and the dueling blade had only worked twice. Worse, I couldn't engage without taking more hits than I could survive.

It was up to Cheddar.

And the lightning serpent didn't let me down.

He poured sunlight into the Paragon, vomiting it up until his jaws looked like a star. The monster's veins glowed yellow, then white as portal metal started to melt around them. It screamed. Claws slashed at my face; I blocked and parried as blood poured from my arms.

Then the Blood-Drained Light froze.

He stood rigid as sunlight surged up his veins—more than he could handle. The portal metal hood around his eyes opened wide. Metal screeched.

And an explosion of light rippled out from the Paragon's head as the miniature sun inside detonated.

A core sat on the ground. A glowing, bright core, the color of sunlight an hour before the sun dipped over the horizon, or in the middle of a break in an all-day storm.

But the Paragon still stood. Its head and arms were twisted metal, all wrapped around the point of darkness where its sunlight core had once been. The broken, jagged metal around it seemed to stretch slightly as the dark core began to pull on it.

The Blood-Drained Light had gone supernova. A black hole was all that remained.

I felt the tugging. The pulling. And I tried to resist it, but it was too strong. I found myself being pulled away from the glowing core and toward the Paragon's corpse. Cheddar launched another sunbeam. It did nothing—if anything, the pulling got worse.

"Ellen, do something!" I yelled.

And she did.

A massive shadow fell across the park—bigger than anything I'd seen her cast before. It blotted out every bit of light, throwing everything into blackness. I couldn't see anything. Then, she cast a second spell, or maybe the second part of the first one. The shadows collapsed inward, surging past me quickly enough to tear bleeding gashes in my exposed skin.

It all collapsed around the Paragon's shattered and twisted body, growing tighter and tighter by the second. Then, it winked out of existence.

"Shadow Crash," Ellen panted. "D-Rank spell. It'll hold for about a minute. I have no idea what'll happen after that."

"Why didn't you do that earlier?" I asked.

In response, she teetered and fell. I caught her before her head bounced off the cobblestones, but barely.

As I set her down and Yasmin dragged Sophia over, I stared at the sunlit core—and at the second, shadowy one. Then I looked at Ellen's unconscious body, her head on my leg. "I think the Paragon was holding out on us," I said.

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