Chapter 30: Choose

  Seraphic black light fired at Veritus from Cole’s palm. The Crozier hummed in his hand, almost excited for the battle.

  The light cut straight, clean. It was the same thing that had been turning demons into ash in piles.

  It hit Veritus.

  Or it should have.

  The demon, casually, knocked the light away with a gesture from his axe.

  The axe moved a few inches, the flat of it catching the edge of the lance, and Cole’s spell peeled off sideways. The seraphic black light skittered across the concrete and died with a hiss.

  Cole stared at the empty air where the spell had been, then at the demon’s eyes.

  He knew that eventually he would run into something that wasn’t very impressed with what he could do.

  He just hadn’t expected it to be so soon.

  The wrongness from the rift churned his stomach. The air felt thick. Behind Veritus, the wound pulsed, and every time it did, the red runes around the pen flickered. The children were being used to keep the whole thing open.

  Caleb stood off to Cole’s right, spear raised, face pale. His gaze kept darting between Veritus and the pen of kids. He wanted to rush forward and do something, anything, but he also knew he’d be cut down the moment he tried.

  Cole forced his breathing steady. Forced his mind into the same calm it always took when he had to cast.

  “Edict: Disarm,” Cole uttered calmly. His halo thrummed quietly over his head.

  The word edict should have been enough. It had been enough against men with guns and monsters with claws.

  Veritus paused, cocking his head.

  For a heartbeat, Cole thought he saw it. A faint tremor in the demon’s weapon. A tiny stutter in the air around the axe.

  “I almost felt that. Impressive.”

  The demon took a single step forward.

  His axe might have quivered once, but otherwise Cole’s spell was ineffective.

  Cole’s fingers tightened around the Crozier until the iron bit into his palm. That had been his cleanest answer. The one that ended fights without blood. The one that made men drop weapons and rethink their choices.

  Veritus didn’t rethink anything.

  “Choir of Verdict.”

  Wings of shadow unfolded from Cole’s back, subtle, barely noticeable unless you were looking. Veritus’s pus fire eyes were. The wings rose and faded, but the weight of the spell stayed, pressing down on the space around the demon.

  Veritus barely slowed.

  “The Unending has granted you great power, human. But it isn’t enough.”

  Veritus walked forward. Cole’s spell did next to nothing. The demon’s step may have been slightly slower, that was it.

  Caleb’s breath caught. Cole heard it, sharp and involuntary. If Choir didn’t work, then what did?

  The rift behind Veritus rippled. Cole could have sworn he saw shapes in the rift. Something watching. Anticipating.

  With the flat of the axe, Veritus swung it toward Cole in a casual backhand.

  It was the kind of swing you’d use to slap someone aside. The casualness of it was an insult.

  Cole decided getting hit by that wasn’t on his to do list.

  “Ashen Aegis.”

  His shield spell spiraled out unseen in front of him, that subtle area that drew a line in the sand. Cole always pictured it the same way. A boundary. A quiet refusal written into the air.

  The axe met the boundary.

  For a moment, Cole thought it might actually stop. He felt the resistance. Felt the world try to say no.

  Then the axe pushed through anyway.

  Veritus’s weapon didn’t care. Again, it slowed slightly, taking some of the force out of the blow, but it landed just the same, sending Cole crashing back against the wall.

  Concrete slammed into his spine. A pulse of pain lit up his back, sharp and hot, webbing upward and across his ribs. His breath left him in a grunt. Dust shook loose and fell over his shoulders.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The Crozier hummed an angry note.

  Cole groaned, standing, forcing himself upright. He set his mouth into a line and swallowed the spike of nausea.

  Caleb took a half step forward, then stopped. His spear trembled in helpless fury.

  “You’re more powerful than any level 6 human wizard has any right to be,” Veritus said, almost conversational.

  Cole didn’t answer.

  “I find it strange that I cannot perceive your title. It must be the source of this power. If I were tier 2, you might win this fight. But I am not. I am a tier 5 being. Do you know what happens at tier 3, human?”

  Cole gripped his staff, narrowing his eyes at the evil before him.

  “No,” he growled.

  “Of course, you’re an initiate. I won’t spoil the surprise, should you reach that level, which is 30.” Veritus tilted its head. “A gift, free information. I am not so bad, wouldn’t you say?”

  Veritus did something with his mouth that Cole was sure the demon thought was a smile. It was horrifying.

  “You can surely cast your spells all day. They’ll do nothing. I could stand here while you attack over and over. Nothing would happen. I am a full 4 tiers ahead of you. You have no hope.”

  Cole’s knuckles turned white.

  He knew the System wasn’t what you would call fair, but Faelen had told him that it usually made its challenges possible to defeat. That was one of the only things Cole had clung to since the world broke. That if you were in a fight, there was a way through it.

  So why would it allow an enemy here that they couldn’t defeat?

  The thought flashed across his face before he could hide it.

  Veritus noticed. Of course it did.

  “Oh, there’s more than one reason. No, I am not reading your mind,” the demon said, and that smile twisted again at the slight shift in Cole’s eyes.

  “First, you can still close the rift. By dealing with me through negotiation, or finding someone with the ritualist class at tier 2. Or perhaps a spell scroll. You would be able to do it yourself if your spell was tier 2, sadly, it isn’t.”

  Cole’s gaze flicked, quick, toward the pulsing runes. Toward the children paling in slow waves. Toward the pen.

  He didn’t know ritual magic or what any of those symbols meant. But he knew one thing with brutal clarity. The kids were the reason it was stable. The reason it was still open. The reason demons were coming out in steady groups instead of random bursts.

  He’d tried Null Hymn on the runes. It had met resistance. He’d tried. It didn’t work.

  “Second,” Veritus continued, “you’re free to flee. You could still escape. You’d leave the children here, but it is possible.”

  Cole's jaw tightened. The bones on the floor, the pale faces at the bars, the unconscious boy Caleb couldn't stop looking at. Leaving wasn't possible.

  “Finally,” Veritus said, voice deepening, “some challenges are simply too much to overcome. The Unending knows this. It seeks to teach that sometimes, little human, there is nothing you can do. Sometimes, you lose, no matter your power.”

  Something in Cole twisted against that.

  Rebelled and recoiled. The statement was a wrong note in a hymn. It didn’t fit. It didn’t belong. It made him want to spit blood and call it a lie.

  With enough power, Cole could overcome anything.

  He may not have it now, but he could get it.

  That didn’t mean it would be free.

  His eyes flicked to the kids.

  His mind raced. Fast, sharp, unwilling to slow down.

  If he couldn’t kill Veritus, he had to outplay him. If he couldn’t erase the runes, he had to break the chain another way. If Null Hymn met resistance, then what would bypass it?

  He looked at the runes again. The way they wound from the rift, twisting into a pattern that led to the pen. The way they pulsed in time with the rift’s breathing. The way the children’s color faded with every flash.

  Cole’s thoughts kept trying to form a plan.

  Then he hit the same wall every time.

  He didn’t have the knowledge. He didn’t have the tool. He didn’t have enough spell points. He didn’t have a tier 2 version of what he needed.

  He had power, but it was the wrong kind for this moment.

  His eyes flicked to Caleb.

  Caleb was staring at Veritus with hatred he wasn’t trying to hide. His lips moved, barely. The prayer from earlier. The desperate attempt to hold onto something steady in a room full of wrong.

  Cole’s mind tried to grab hold of that and make it into strategy too. Faith. Resolve. A sacrifice.

  No.

  Was there any way to win this without sacrificing Caleb?

  Caleb stepped forward suddenly.

  “Enough,” his voice was tired, but there was a note there. Resolve.

  “I’ll take the deal.”

  “No,” Cole growled through his teeth.

  Caleb looked at him with something in his eyes. It wasn’t pity. Acceptance, maybe. Cole couldn’t place it, and that terrified him more than Veritus did.

  Acceptance meant Caleb had already decided. Acceptance meant Caleb had already stood in his own mind and watched himself die, and made peace with it.

  “You’ve done enough, Cole. Enough.” Caleb’s voice was soft, but clear.

  Cole wanted to shout over him. Wanted to grab him and drag him back. Wanted to say shut up and let me think.

  Caleb kept going anyway.

  “You could’ve left any day now. You had a son to look for, but you didn’t. You stayed. You helped the settlement. You knew we needed you, but you set aside your own goals.”

  Cole’s throat tightened.

  He didn’t look at the kids. He couldn’t. If he looked at them, he’d stop being able to hear anything else. He’d stop being able to think.

  Caleb’s gaze shifted to the pen, and his voice lowered, steadying.

  “When these kids were in trouble, you didn’t even hesitate. Enough.” Caleb’s voice stayed soft, but it rang in that underground space.

  Cole felt his title react.

  It wasn’t a notification. It wasn’t words flashing in front of his eyes. It was a subtle shift in the air. A quiet weight settling around his halo.

  Cole hated that he felt it.

  He hated that the world seemed to pause for a second.

  There was something happening here. Something Cole shouldn’t interfere with.

  “No,” Cole said.

  Fuck cosmic feelings. He wasn’t about to allow Caleb to die here.

  Caleb chuckled, and the sound was so human that it hurt. He smiled at Cole, small and crooked.

  “Hey, demon,” Caleb said, voice firmer now, “does it matter what he says? He’s going to do what you want anyway, right? Let me take the kids place as the anchor.”

  Cole’s head snapped toward him.

  “Caleb.”

  Caleb didn’t look away.

  Veritus’s pus fire eyes regarded Caleb, and there was hunger in the way it watched him.

  “Sacrifice,” Veritus said. “Deliciously noble.”

  The demon’s eyes flicked to Cole.

  “This is his choice, human wizard. I’m going to honor it. You can either get something out of this, or nothing. It is time for you to choose.”

  Cole bowed his head.

  His hand tightened on the Crozier until the hum in the iron turned sharp, the weapon itself wanted violence. Cole wanted to put Veritus in the ground and burn the rift shut and carry every child back up the stairs himself.

  He couldn’t.

  He forced himself to breathe through the anger.

  If he refused, Caleb might still step forward. The demon would still take what it wanted. Cole would still lose the children and the chance at information. He’d get nothing but blood and regret.

  If he accepted, he’d be making a deal with a demon.

  Everyone knew how stupid it was to make deals with demons.

  And yet.

  Nathan.

  Tanner.

  Wrath.

  Devin.

  The words tangled together in his head.

  He lifted his gaze slowly, eyes settling on Veritus.

  “Choose,” Veritus echoed again.