The first thing I noticed was the humming. It was a low, constant sound—a deep vibration that traveled through the floor beneath me, into the first few yers of my skin, irritating every nerve fiber it could find.

  I pushed myself upright, my gauntleted palms pressing against unyielding stone. The smoky darkness surrounding me withdrew at a sluggish pace, almost reluctant to let go, revealing a rge circur chamber that was seamless, cold, and utterly unnatural.

  The walls pulsed with synchronized runes, beating in time with the hum’s cyclical rhythm. Torches fred at routine intervals, their flickering fmes the only strong illumination source in this space without doors, windows, or a way out.

  In hindsight, attacking the wall with my sword was probably not the smartest choice.

  You might be saying, ‘Search the room for traps and hidden switches!' ‘Look for patterns in the runes!' 'Think before you act!'

  However, in my defense, I was pissed.

  Not frustrated. Not irritated, like usual.

  Livid.

  “Let me out of here!” I screamed, summoning my aura with a stomp of my foot. “If you don’t open up, I’ll make my own exit!”

  I sshed at the wall with my bzing bde, expecting initial resistance before something gave way, but instead, the impact rattled up my arms. My sword rebounded, throwing me off bance.

  The only effect the attack had was to make me angrier.

  I struck again. And again. Each time, sparks erupted, showering across the sigils lining the walls, but the runes held fast, taunting me with their cold indifference.

  Then, finally, progress.

  I nded a deep gouge into a rune, which sputtered as its faint liquid light bled into the one next to it. For a single, triumphant moment, I watched as an entire section of wall cracked and ignited, fmes racing across its surface, devouring the surrounding runes.

  Then the fmes surged, and the wall restored itself to a pristine perfection in the blink of an eye, as if I had never touched it.

  “Are you kidding me?!”

  As I raised my sword for another series of strikes, a familiar chorus of chaotic metallic shuffling rang through the air behind me.

  I whirled around, and my worst thoughts took shape before my eyes.

  Anhinga.

  This time, he stood in his complete monstrous form, his bird-like head tilting and beady crimson eyes gleaming as his long, curved beak clicked in amusement. His bare chest heaved as a mass of bck wings unfurled behind it. Below his waist, several thick snake tails were coiled and writhing, their slick scales glistening in the dim torchlight.

  I pulled up my shield and pointed my sword at him, my aura fring. “Take me back to my friends or suffer the consequences!”

  Anhinga didn’t answer. With a piercing screech, he lunged forward, swinging both of his oversized sabers in swift succession.

  Cngs of steel against steel rang out as I caught the first with my sword and the other with my shield. I shoved forward, driving my shield into him, forcing him to stagger back.

  “I said, take me back! This is your st chance!”

  Sparks exploded around us, each csh sending golden and bck embers spiraling into the air. Anhinga’s movements were just too readable, too familiar, with the mass of coiled serpents propelling him this way and that.

  His whole unadapted move set enraged me. A part of me wanted him to suffer. He had most certainly pyed a role in Nora’s kidnapping, and I wanted him to pay.

  “Why are you fighting like this?!” I snarled, ducking beneath a predictable overhead strike. “Are you even trying?”

  He hissed, but his rhythm never changed. His snake tails continued to jerk him side to side, but sloppily, mostly in reflex to my attacks.

  Something was wrong.

  Enough with sshing at snake tails. I need to take out the head of the operation.

  Anhinga flinched as I sliced his right forearm with my fiery golden sword, his saber tumbling to the ground with his hand still gripping it. After a moment, the sword and hand disappeared in a puff of bck smoke. He fshed, his arm and sword suddenly reattached to the former stub.

  “Summon your supervisor!” I yelled. “I want to speak to them!”

  “Shield at full resonance,” a detached voice noted from beyond the wall. “Minimal dey observed. The bde, however, shows insufficient output.”

  “Compromised integrity?” another voice questioned from the other side. “Contaminant noted above hilt.”

  “Animus residue unlikely the culprit,” Marquis Galenus concluded from somewhere above. “Suspect temporary ideological misalignment between device and user. Continue to observe.”

  I almost faltered mid-step.

  “What?”

  I was in a fight with one of their own, and they were taking notes?

  No, not just taking notes. They weren’t even trying to hide their observations.

  They wanted me to hear them, to know this was an experiment.

  And this thing before me isn’t Anhinga.

  And that pissed me off even more.

  “You think this is a game? That it’s fun to toy with my anger?” I growled, smming my sword into Anhinga’s chest, golden fire surging along the bde. “Fine. Let’s py!”

  Dark tears poured from Anhinga’s eyes as a shrill scream escaped him, the wail ending with a pitiful exhale.

  “New observation,” Galenus intoned. “Weapon exhibits conditional augmentation, activating only when wielder demonstrates lethal intent.”

  W-wait. Was I wrong?

  But if it was him, he got what he deserved… right?

  The apparition, still stuck to my bde, shuddered and fshed.

  Now it was Vernie, her face deathly pale, eyes wide and unseeing.

  I yanked my bde back in horror, the sword suddenly heavy and cold in my grip.

  No. This isn’t real.

  I froze in pce, unable to look away.

  The apparition flickered and changed into Aleph. He staggered, his face full of abject disbelief as his mouth hung open, jaw unhinged.

  It’s just mind games!

  I stepped back, slipping slightly.

  Now it was Tetora who fell to the ground, his face contorted, eyes open, and whiskers motionless. The projection then shuddered several times before exploding into prismatic gss that shattered into tiny shards on the stones before me.

  “Analysis?” a woman's voice purred.

  “Even when priming subject with evidence of simution, amity levels sharply decreased during visualized loss.”

  “Give me back my companions, now!” I screamed at the walls. “All of them!”

  The woman ughed hysterically from somewhere above. “ Why not? Subject is to be rewarded as requested. Proceed with the Sage, Marquis Galenus.”

  Relias appeared on his knees at the other end of the chamber, ensnared in an oily, iridescent magic circle. Next to him was General Ragnerus, his bde poised over Relias’s hanging head.

  “Join my father!” Ragnerus bellowed. “The Goddess isn’t here to save you!”

  I sprinted forward even as my thoughts screamed that I was too far, too slow, too te. I swung my sword wildly as I screamed, desperate for it to unleash my power.

  “Amity Bolt!”

  The sword quivered for a moment.

  General Ragnerus gnced at me, smirked, then raised his sword higher.

  “I said Amity Bolt, damn it!” I swung harder, pouring every ounce of rage, desperation, and sheer will into the bde. It shuddered violently, resisting at first, then finally, it awakened.

  A golden inferno erupted from the edge, surging forward in a bzing arc. It struck Ragnerus, ripping through his projection and consuming it. His form shattered like brittle gss, fragments dissolving into nothingness. The circle surrounding Relias hissed as it dissolved, causing him to drop to the stone floor.

  “Rae?” His voice was unsteady and gasping, his hand trembling as he reached for me.

  “I swear it’s me,” I replied, taking his hand in my right.

  Light burst forth from our grip, and he sighed with relief. “Thank the Goddess…”

  “How nauseating,” the woman muttered before demanding in a louder voice. “Analysis?”

  “Restoration of long-range attack. Subject’s Amity level increased threefold over the st five seconds,” Galenus noted in an insufferably detached tone. “However, once again, several decreases were noted prior to the spike, corresponding with physical manifestations aligned with impending loss.”

  Relias snapped his head up and looked around wild-eyed. “Where are you, Mistress?!”

  Mistress Aziza let out a bored huff. “As expected. Hmm… He’s sure to use even the mere threat to his advantage. Let’s not give him such a chance. I’ve seen enough for now.”

  The ever-present hum grew into an ear-splitting screech, and the chamber trembled. In the center of the room, Aleph, Vernie, and Tetora materialized, all appearing shaken and confused. Relias nodded and beckoned for us to join them, convincing me they were not apparitions.

  Relief, apprehension, and rage initially tried to control me, but they all yielded to an icy, detached calm.

  Enough screwing around.

  “Taika?” Relias asked the others quietly as I considered my pn.

  “She fell into the darkness with us,” Aleph replied hesitantly. “But we did not find her on our way here.”

  Tetora’s face, unsurprisingly, was conflicted, and I could see doubt lingering in his eyes. “She’s a survivor. I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “Let’s investigate the way forward,” Relias said with a soft sigh. “Perhaps the walls hold a clue?”

  “No,” I objected. “I’m not a fan of escape room puzzles. In honor of her inexorable rescue, I’m going to pull a Nora.” I gnced at my bde, which had made its way back into my fist.

  Well, Will, it seems you respond to my anger?

  The sword sparkled in response.

  Let’s get to know each other a little bit better, then. With this next swing, I don’t want you to hold anything back.

  Joyously, it leaped into golden fmes.

  “Um, Rae?” Vernie questioned, staring at my sword with both excitement and apprehension. “What are you pnning, exactly?”

  “You’ll see,” I muttered and waved them back, turning my gaze to my shield. “Just get ready to move when I do.” I turned to Relias. “We'll need a barrier to protect us on our way through.”

  He inhaled, sighed, and settled into a nod. “As ordered, Captain.”

  Faith. Py something... appropriate for the inevitable destruction of this maze we’re trapped in.

  I braced myself for something loud, fast, and furious. Perhaps a hit from a heavy metal band, like a pounding war anthem. Instead, the opening notes of Verdi’s Requiem: Dies Irae swelled around me, pyed by a full orchestral force of judgment and fury.

  I had to admit, Faith had style. Nothing calls forth divinely inspired justice quite like a thunderous chorus of doom and retribution. It took a bit, but I gathered every ounce of my will. Then I lifted my sword, aura bzing, the music surging toward its inevitable climax.

  “Subject’s rage at maximum levels,” I snarled to myself as I began to run. “Initiating Rae’s Reckoning!”

  A tidal wave of golden energy surged from the tip of my bde as I swung it, and light exploded outward in an all-consuming inferno. The wall ahead vanished as the bst continued to rip forward at a retively slow but steady pace, obliterating everything in its path. It continued to cascade through yers of miniature realities, the fireball indiscriminate in its appetite. Rooms blew apart, entire corridors imploded, and through it all, the air rang with the agonized shrieks of demons. None, however, dared to trace the path of destruction—save for us, following at a deliberate distance.

  Eventually, an unseen force halted its momentum. The mass of energy quivered, and its light was snuffed out a moment ter, devoured by a hazy darkness that slowly faded away, revealing the frozen form of Mistress Aziza herself. Her right hand was raised, with fingers spread. All her long, orange hair stood entirely on end, floating in the residual static charge still swirling about her. Her other hand remained tightly gripped around a porcein tea kettle that had long since poured its contents into, over, and around a tiny teacup.

  Without a flicker of emotion, she set the teapot down carefully, a single drip of tea falling soundlessly onto the soiled tabletop before her.

  “Now that was a bit unexpected.”

  Post Chapter Omake:

  Nora: You actually said you were ‘pulling a Nora’ back then?

  Rae: Yes.

  Nora: That means it’s no longer a pejorative phrase! Do you agree, then, that sometimes destruction is necessary?

  Rae: Uh… Not mass destruction. Um. Intentional, focused, and controlled destruction.

  Nora: That’s not what happened back then, and you know it.

  Rae: I wonder if they caught the amity level on that…

  Nora: I’m curious too—hey! You’re changing the subject!

  Rae: No, I already did.

  Euphridia