Carithiel disappeared in the blackness of the Dark Void with an evil cackle that echoed inside Death’s own skull.

  The Dark Void? This place feels… familiar, Death thought.

  He recalled a brief memory of his mother sat by his bedside, telling the tale of the Void Paradox. The Void is the foundation of all that exists, this is known widely by even the little children, but what is the foundation of the Void itself? Alas, the question, which came first? The Dark Void is the foundation of the Void, yet the Void is what enables its counterpart to exist in the first place. Light and dark, night and day, life and death, they cannot exist without each other. The question is said to have pushed many philosophers to insanity the more they tried to explore it.

  I battle Aleirica’s mind in the Void, Death continued. But this feels different… I cannot construct anything from my memories. I don’t know the rules of this place. I must be wary.

  “I sense your confusion, human,” Carithiel whispered. “But you don’t need to worry. When I kill you in this place, your body will become a husk—I shall kill you in one blow.”

  “And do you plan to do that by hiding in the shadows without a weapon? You damned coward, where are you?”

  “Oh… you poor little human. You have no idea what hides in the Dark Void, do you? This place feeds on your fear, plucks at its own pace. I don’t need to fight you. This place will do it all for me. In the Void, the voices whisper… in here, they scream.”

  Death was suddenly struck in the chest by something he never saw. It was painful, like a blow from a mace. He heard the scuttling of feet against a floor that never existed, tiny taps creaking around him like a spider stalking him.

  He closed his eyes and listened for whatever it was, then swung his sword as it came closer. It squealed, retreating. A thick hair leg of a giant arachnid fell at his feet with a thud.

  Plays on my fears. I’m not fearful of spiders. This place is like my battle with Aleirica, a two-way path… it’s Carithiel’s fears put up against mine.

  He felt the darkness of the void ripple beneath his feet like a puddle of water. A structure burst through emptiness and announced itself with a sharp screech like scraping a fork across a plate.

  Death had no choice but to venture in.

  It seemed like a house, if one could call it that, the roof askew, windows shattered, the wooden walls stained with black from the result of a fire. The rooms inside flicked with a faint yellow, even though not a single candle lit the walls. The furniture was smashed to pieces, the carpets torn up, paintings ripped—a door at the end of the hallway was cracked open, a sorrowful weep inviting him to come and explore.

  He paused with his hand on the knob, the other readying his sword. The floorboards were creakier on the other side, the fake air of the Dark Void grew thicker with dust and the scent of blood, making his lungs feel heavy with each breath taken.

  A chorus of agony and prayer sang out; tables laden with bodies, some dying and some already dead. Some had simple wounds, a cut in a vital place or an arrow stuck in a shoulder; others were missing their limbs, their organs being stuffed back into their body by women with faces like frightened rabbits as they lit more candles to see what they were working with.

  Some of the woman hacked away infections of their patients with axes, saws, and knives; others cowered in the corners, the source of the weeping, their bloodied hands folded around each other as they mourned those they couldn’t save.

  This feels too vivid to be a fear. Is this a memory? Is the Dark Void unearthing my buried memories?

  Death’s footsteps got heavier, his body seeming to remember the event whilst his mind didn’t. He found a locked door then found a key hidden in one of his pockets. He pressed his ear to the door, hearing a muffled conversation, one of the voices he knew as his own.

  Before he could put the key in the lock, the ground began to quake from a heavy footstep behind—the darkness condensed into a shadow of a monstrous troll, hulking and crude. As it passed by the candles, not one of their features lit up.

  A troll? Carithiel fears spiders, now trolls? This devil is the biggest coward I have ever seen.

  It released the roar of a dragon, a dark, spiked club manifesting into its gigantic hand.

  I must find Carithiel in this madness, Death told himself. These shadows are pointless opponents. They will just keep coming.

  Each step from the troll splintered the floor; the women of the memory reacted to the beast accordingly, screaming and covering their eyes. That, however, didn’t matter—he swatted the women like flies with his club, turning them to splats of blood and bone on the walls.

  When it got to Death, it raised the club above their head and brought it down on him. He held his sword firm, stopping the weapon still and bearing the weight of the blow through his legs.

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  That strength from Snow has proved helpful… I don’t think I could have stopped him if I only had Aleion’s strength.

  The troll then tried to kick Death in the ribs. He dashed to one side, slicing off the troll’s foot with one quick motion. It hopped on one leg and collapsed onto their back. Death wasted no time, rushing up the troll’s leg and sticking the blade into the heart. The creature melted into a black, sticky sludge.

  A nuisance at best, Death thought. It had me worried it’d give me a challenge for a moment there.

  With the weeping women crushed, the Dark Void fell back to a suffocating silence. Death unlocked the door and slowly pushed it open—a small office, table overturned, papers and candles littered across the floor. Jars of coin smashed on the shelves; old books tore in half at their spines. In the farthest corner, a maiden in a white dress cowered from him, her ankles, stomach, and wrists stained with red blood.

  He recognised the girl. The same girl he saw whilst battling with Aleirica. “Who are you?” Death asked her. “Why are you in my mind as part of memories? What are you?”

  She removed her hands from her face, showing streams of red from her eyes, her gaze hollow like a corpse. She opened her mouth to show a severed tongue and bloodied gums, then lunged at him with a speed that belied her frail form.

  She reached for his throat, her mouth twisting in a silent scream as she pushed him over and tried to crack his head like an egg against the carpet. She scratched deep cuts into his chest and neck, her teeth sinking into the meat of his shoulder and ripping out a ball of flesh.

  Death took one of Vera’s dagger’s and stuck it into the maiden’s throat. With the other, he put it into her liver, then struck her hard in the jaw to get her off him.

  She stood and staggered, moaning and groaning; she hit her head hard against the wall, then turned to him with an innocent face, eyes glistening with fresh tears.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered, looking at her hands. “What did I do? I didn’t mean to hurt you. Don’t leave.” She reached a hand out for Death, then succumbed to the loss of blood. “Don’t… leave me, please stay with me.”

  Death cared little for the woman. He took the daggers out of her as she turned to sludge and put them back in his belt.

  He heard his own voice calling to him from all directions.

  “The ones worth marrying are imperfect.”

  “Conquering it all means nothing if I have none to share with.”

  “I would give my life for her to be like me.”

  The finally, a voice he recognised as the scarred man. “I have a solution for you,” he said. “But the price is heavy.”

  “Anything. I will do anything.” Death’s voice said.

  The real Death became angry, yelling out. “How dare you enter my mind to find memories I don’t remember! Do you know who I am, creatures of the Dark Void? I am a conqueror! I fear nothing, not a single thing! I’ll kill everything you send at me!”

  “Even yourself?”

  Death turned to the door and saw a shadow figure stood with a scythe slung over one shoulder. It was himself, featureless, glowing red eyes. “You fear yourself,” the mimic said, pacing the edge of the room as Death followed the shadow with his sword. “You fear what would happen if you could talk to yourself. You fear the judgement you cast on others thrown onto yourself.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Yes it is. Even now, you’re refusing to judge me. I am you. I see the pitiful man that you are. You let your soul get snatched by a mortal girl. You nearly died against a weak cambion. You let those Valan imbeciles lock you in a cell, nearly dying while escaping, which was only possible through the luck of a bargain struck. You let those two women away your decisions, even though you claim you have no liking for either.”

  Death attacked the mimic with a low swing. The mimic caught the sword with his scythe, slashed Death’s stomach open, then kicked him to the floor.

  “Idiot,” the mimic mocked. “I am you. You should be listening to me, not attacking me.”

  “I won’t listen to an impostor,” Death coughed. “Just kill me and get it over with. I will not become a husk, my soul will fight the effects of this place once I’m out of it.”

  “Arrogance. You have no way of knowing if you could.”

  “I know I could.”

  Death’s answer for him a kick in the chest. The house around him crumbled to rubble as a result of the blow’s surrounding blast.

  It’s a bet I have to take, Death thought. The Dark Void has more power in it than I thought… I spoke to soon with my challenge to the darkness.

  As the mimic approached a defeated Death, so did Carithiel. He sauntered from the darkness and chuckled.

  Death rested on his knees, head low. That devil is unscathed. If I truly can’t resist his intrusion of my mind in the arena, this may be my end… no. If I can just hold on, a new fear should come for him. I must resist dying until he dies first.

  “Get out of here, I’m not done with him,” the mimic said. “I’ll kill you too, coward.”

  “I’m the coward?” Carithiel scoffed. “And what makes you say that, creature of darkness?”

  The mimic put the scythe under Death’s chin and tilted it up, narrowing their eyes with a satisfied hum, then changed their target from Death to Carithiel.

  “Coward,” the mimic told the devil. “The Battle of Human Hell. You let you your demon brethren die.”

  “What? What are you doing? You are a creature of the Dark Void, he fears you! Follow the rules of the emptiness, kill your prey and seize his soul!”

  “I am not his fear,” the mimic said. Death’s wounds began to heal at the mimic’s order. “I’m your fear.”

  Carithiel hissed and spread his wings. He pulled a brittle iron sword from a hidden scabbard as his weapon.

  Death felt powerful, rising to his feet without any injuries. The Dark Void feels… warmer, like it has embraced me. Does it know who I am? The paths of my past must have crossed with this place before.

  The voice of the maiden from his memory tugged at him one last time as he joined the side of his mimic and prepared to fight the Crooked Devil.

  “Do not break the glass,” she warned. “It listens. It observes. Do not leave me. Do not. Do not.”